How so? Do you use WMC, XBMC or something else? The WMC pack will cost a few quid, bringing native DVD playback along for the ride. XBMC and everything else will still play DVDs as normal. Surely the Metro UI is a boon on a HTPC - a few months down the line we'll no doubt have seen various clever methods of controlling it and it's apps from the couch (Kinect support? Smartphone/tablet controlled?).Originally Posted by cjs150
I still don't understand why they removed support - could somebody please enlighten me? As for the HTPC - yes it's going to be great - I'll actually be able to use my trackball effectively and open programs from a distance!
Currently studying: Electronic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton.
Or mouse in bottom left corner. Or Win + I, power. Or hit the power button. But yeah, I hear you. Then again "Start, shutdown" ??? Funny how we accept it now but it always occurred to me as being downright silly. Then again so was a menu that came from the bottom of the screen to me (with just one column!) when I switched from Amiga's workbench (and the excellent Dir Opus shell).
If you'd never seen Windows before? Pros and cons really - yes you wouldn't 'know' about Windows conventions but also you'd be less likely to be resistant to doing things the '7' way. Take UAC - hundreds of complaints about it but really almost all of them stemmed from XP users trying to do it the 'xp way' even though the practices were plain bad. There was so much hyperbole about "ms controlling ma' PC!" etc and when you drilled down to it they were trying to copy stuff into program files routinely or the root of the system drive.
8 has more pain points in one sense - there's less visual clues for the metro parts - but otoh explorer now gets stacks of them in the ribbon (and this is so much better for novices over 7's complete lack of er.. anything). Question is, given 10 mins of training can someone cope? For most stuff - easy yes - but some of the more advanced stuff like moving between apps and segmenting the screen is a bit clunky in the RP build. I really need to see the RTM though - this isn't a finished product i'm typing on now.
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
Because people don't use it.
I hate saying that - I love my HTPC but they're dead right - it's marginal use case. Compare how many people have Sky to an HTPC. Hateful isn't it?
At least it's 'there' still - just - and one codec pack and mediabrowser later i'll be OK I guess.
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
I'm sure people still use dvds in their computer though...
Currently studying: Electronic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton.
Ah, but that's a different scenario and there there's media player + codec, vlc etc etc. It can be done, and without cost. Should it work by default? It'd be nice..
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
Nuh uh. Something as basic as DVD support should be included. Does it really take up so much space that they couldn't include it? And what's with charging for it anyway? Is it a space thing or a money thing?
Currently studying: Electronic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton.
Yeah, and they'll have bought a PC off the shelf which has PowerDVD or whatever pre-installed.
Erm, I agreed with you!
They say it's money - because then every copy of Windows requires someone to get paid for DVD playback regardless of whether it's used or not (which is true). If pricing is good for W8 this may well be acceptable. Look at how much it costs to buy software to playback bluray (with surround) - I think it's shocking personally!
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
After reading this thread dangel makes the most sense I've seen about Windows 8 in a while...
Sure it's not perfect, but it's a big improvement on Windows 7 when used on late 2012 hardware, with late 2012 use-cases - i.e. TOUCH! The hardware world has gone all touchy feely and Microsoft absolutely had to follow the market or become outdated, keeping the legacy happy at the same time is a hard job and to be honest I think they've done pretty well. If you take the time to learn how to use Windows 8 it is actually quite streamlined (even on legacy hardware if you learn how, hit start, type few letters of program name, hit enter... wow that was hard) and I forsee a Surface Pro arriving at my gaff soon after release...
All the people complaining about how it adds nothing to their old laptop should remember that their old laptop is not Microsoft's target market for Win 8. The number of people who upgrade their OS is far smaller than the number who buy it with a new device.
In any case if you're a real luddite Windows 7 will be around a long time - enterprise will skip a generation because of long hardware refresh cycles and upgrade costs, they all used XP well beyond it's planned lifetime, skipped Vista, lapped up 7 (many are still upgrading, and won't change their plan now they'll stick to moving to 7)... they'll skip 8 because it's too soon after the 7 upgrade project and and maybe upgrade when 9 or 10 comes out. Make no mistake Windows 8 is aimed squarely at the consumer and touch audience - an audience that largely loves touching things, big bright icons and shiny things (they buy iTat in droves, no more proof needed) - sorry fellow nerds we aren't the priority this time.
I haven't had a dvd in my pc for several years. I downgraded from windows 8 because of rubbish z68 virtu support and chrome kept crashing but I hope that's going to be done on release. As for the underlying OS, certain parts I found much more stable than windows 7. Loved the multi desktop support and explorer didn't crash like it does sometimes in 7. I have to admit to installing classic shell on it, if anything it addresses some of the issues above like finding the power off.
I don't think that it's impossible to think that a divide could occur between personal and business users here, there's lots of reasons why people would choose a common platform for the home/consumer market - but the field of battle has been set and it's such an exciting time I cant wait to see how this will all pan out.
You could probably count on one hand the number of people who seriously uses a touch screen desktop monitor as their input mode of choice, and all of them probably work at Redmond. In fact, looking at the monitor market now, I'm hard pressed to actually find a touch screen desktop monitor. Dell sells exactly one, and it's only 21.5", and you'll pay £60 more for the privilege. This is a classic example of manufactured demand to keep investors happy where none actually exists in the real market.
Not hard, impossible. They're mutually exclusive paradigms. One is fat greasy finger baboon input, the other is fine input device on-screen cursor-driven pointing. Touch is necessary for mobile devices which have to fit in your pocket, but becomes an increasing hindrance as you scale up and interface with non-trivial applications with irreducibly crowded UI elements.
If they did well to keep legacy happy then nobody would be complaining. But since there's a laundry list of complaints, I think it's safe to say they failed hard.
Windows 7 let you hit start, type a few letters of a programme name, and hit enter. All without a jarring full screen Windows 3.1-era barffest interrupting your work flow. I've spent time learning the ins and outs of Windows 8 and using it, and while there are some real good solid desktop improvements, all those are offset by smothering the desktop goodness with brain damaged touchcrap which doesn't belong. And no, pin-spamming the taskbar doesn't fix it.
There's a good reason why their old laptops don't work with it. Because nobody wanted touch for their PCs, it was never a market born out of consumer demand, and so it failed, hard.
The consumers which who aren't interested in touch PCs. Microsoft is (or was) good at one thing, and one thing only, and that's PC software, they got absolutely nowhere in the mobile market, people just aren't interested. So instead they throw their one true consumer-base under the bus just to service a market which isn't interested? That is so beyond stupid it begs questioning whether Microsoft's management is certifiably insane.
By all means they should have continued to try to break into the mobile market further, but they should have done that by extending Windows Phone for other mobile x86/ARM devices. Not by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Money. The codec licenses aren't cheap apparently (which probably just means 'they aren't cheap when we're talking tens or hundreds of millions of licenses). Win8 is looking like it'll be the cheapest edition of Windows to date, and no doubt it's partly down to this move.
The thing that I do find bizarre is how much fuss is being made over this. Either people are being silly, or Microsoft's usage statistics are wrong. If a comparatively small number of users use WMC and DVD playback then surely it wouldn't upset as many people as it has (unless people are getting themselves in a duster over 'the principle')?
I didn't like Vista. I REALLY don't want Windows 8 for my HTPC.
Windows 7 and XBMC is better. Windows 8 seems to be a step backwards. It just looked like Windows 7 with a "not-so-fancy" front-end interface. I cant see their bing app store being better for my home network.
Imagine a whole network of W8 PC... *shudder*
kthxbai m$!
Personally, my portable laptop didn't come with a DVD drive so I don't really care there, and I've removed the drive from my main one for a second hard drive.. so nope, don't care there either
It would still be nice to have the option though without having to go through a major faff when e.g. taking a DVD round someone's house only to discover their new laptop with Windows on it won't play a DVD.
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