Why Windows 8 should be a success

Windows 8 Logo (Photo credit: Dekuwa)

Windows 8 regularly gets lots of negative comments from people online. Now I don’t know this as fact, however it feels like many of the posts by bloggers and reviewers are describing how they are becoming won over by the new UI and the new way of operating the system (see what I did there!) However on the other side of the fence is the community (i.e. the users) who seem to be very vocal  about how bad the OS is despite some, if not many, never even trying it.  I have seen many comparisons between Win 8 and Vista saying that it is destined to fail and so on.

Sure Microsoft’s track history does seem to imply that Windows 8 is going to be somewhat of a failure. Windows 3.1 was great but 3.11 was barely noticed, so 95 came out to lots of wows. Then 98 was released to huge applause breaking the cycle, then 2000 which most people seemed to ignore. The calibrated XP was unleashed on the world which was widely recognised as one of the best operating systems ever made.  Of course Vista, is next, considered to be a disaster, leading to Windows 7 which in anyone’s books is a giant success.  So the two title flop is upon us again, however could it be time to repeat the success of Windows 98?

This leads us to the latest iteration of Microsoft’s flagship OS, Windows 8. First I would like to point out that most people who post online have a strong opinion on the subject they are talking about and there is a trend in online comments and forums of criticising what they don’t like. However if you like something or have no opinion of it you tend to not comment at all so it can be deceptive when it comes to how many people truly feel on a given subject.  If you search for terms referring to Windows 8 you’ll find a large number of blog comments and forum posts on how bad it is and why people are expecting it to fail, and very few being positive towards it, this gives the impression that everyone hates it, but if you look at how society communicates online, that may not be accurate. The haters post because they feel strongly about it (you’d be surprised how many say they hate it but haven’t even tried it for more than a few minutes, if at all, even in a virtual machine) but those who like it just get on with enjoying it because they don’t have anything to complain about.

The problem is people’s perceptions often dictate their reality. So if you expect the chips (of the food variety) to be horrible you’ll likely say, “oh it’s not as good as whoever’s”, instead of just enjoying it for what it is. The same can be said about this OS – people are expecting it to be crap and unusable with a desktop or laptop so they don’t even give it a try and when they do, they are constantly looking for the stuff they hate instead of seeing the possibilities.

Now to the crux of the initial question, I have been using Windows 8 Release Preview for a while on both my PC and my iPad 2 (how you may ask I’ll write about that soon), I have surfed the web, played games, written, listened to music, watched videos, basically used it as my primary PC. I have to admit I struggled at first trying to find the things I wanted, however as time went on I learnt how to use it, with both finger and mouse and it has become very fluid and easy to use. Microsoft said when they launched the Dev and Release Preview that it can easily be used with both mouse and finger, they were right, it just took a little longer to get used to it than I or they were probably expecting.

Once you know the commands, gestures, mouse movements and how to find what you’re looking for it becomes so natural. Windows 8 has its issues and bugs but it isn’t finished yet and we have to give Microsoft time to finish it and then spend some time using it before we make our minds up on it.  It runs so well and smooth, which leads to customising the Metro UI and the traditional desktop to how you like it, is so much easier than Windows 7 and it’s predecessors that I can’t help wonder if those people who are complaining are doing so because the OS is becoming too simple and beautiful, power users are scared of liking it.

Windows 8 SHOULD be a success simply because it has the simplest interface imaginable, without losing the power many people have come to love. It has the ability to work on PCs, laptops and tablets making it a seamless transfer from one platform to another, and while touch is best, mouse is simple, fast and fluid to get where you’re going and of course it looks totally stunning on any platform.