BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Microsoft's Fix: Run, Don't Walk, To Windows 10

Following
This article is more than 9 years old.

It's been way too long but Microsoft has finally gotten around to fixing Windows 8.

As spelled out by Microsoft on Wednesday, Windows 10 corrects the company's clumsy attempt to be all things to all people, i.e., simultaneously a touch and desktop operating environment. In short, Windows 10 promises to compartmentalize itself: run a mouse-and-keyboard operating system on a PC, then switch to a touch-friendly OS on a tablet.   (See this preview of Windows 10.)

That could've been done sooner, of course.   Windows 8 was released to the general public in October 2012. That's almost two and a half years of a dysfunctional operating system.

I've used Windows 8 extensively on the first Surface Pro tablet, the Surface Pro 2, the Surface Pro 3 and, now, on a Dell XPS 13 (with a touch screen).  In a word, it's confusing.  And it has always been confusing.

I use that word because Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore used it during Wednesday's presentation.

Belfiore said Windows 10's ability to switch between tablet and PC mode allows the device to be used "in a natural way without the UI [user interface] being something that’s confusing to people."

Bingo. When I use Windows 8.1, in the back of my mind I'm always thinking: why would such a storied software company with all that design expertise/experience spit out such a two-headed monstrosity.

"Windows 10 is what Windows 8 'coulda' and 'shoulda' been," Bob O'Donnell, founder of Technalysis Research (and formerly an IDC analyst) said in response to an email query.

This user comment (attached to a Wall Street Journal article) is typical: "Reduced to randomly tapping, swiping from this corner or that edge, hoping to find the secret handshakes needed to just shut it down." Bingo again. 

And in the same article, the writer (when reviewing the new Dell XPS 13), stated the obvious about Windows 8/8.1 calling it "the Franken-OS" that tries to cobble together two separate (tablet and desktop) experiences. He also used the word "confusing."

Why stick with Windows 8.1, then?   Well, I haven't really.  I don't use it much these days.  That said, I do like the new Windows hardware that's coming out (e.g., the new Dell XPS 13 and the HP Elitebook Folio 1020), which tends to be more interesting than Apple's offerings.

And I am keen to use the general release of Windows 10.  We won't know until then how much better it really is.  But it appears that Microsoft has addressed Windows 8's most serious shortcoming.

I think it's safe to say that when it does arrive, run, don't walk, to the real successor to Windows 7.