Would Windows be less like a phone if we had remained in the style of XP and just improved it in increments?

submitted by [deleted] from self.nonmorons

Instead of doing these radical changes to draw in the phone people (whom were never interested in the first damn place) do you think if Microsoft had stuck to the XP format but with improved security and compatibility (as reasonable as possible) instead of trying to be an always online phone company the Windows scene would be a lot better and more companies would write software directly?

We wouldn't be stuck with Steam and instead have real stores that sell stuff due to more demand but when Windows decided 'Me too' to be a phone many companies gave up and now all you see for sale is Antivirus software type stuff. It's too bad Steam type stores is all there is.

Microsoft Virtual PC was actually starting to get good if you knew how to do it properly but they dropped it for Hyper V which was awful with no sound or any drivers,etc to properly play anything and if it weren't for PCEM to save the say I'd be f'ked. I feel Microsoft would've been real close to an official PCEM type emulator which accurately does the cycles of the machine it's emulating.

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[–]BlueFrost 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you whoever made this post. I hate the modern phone interface look.

[–]fschmidt 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Of course sticking with XP would have been better. XP wasn't bad at all. But that would be contrary to the forces of history. Everything is getting worse in modern culture, from music to architecture to politics and to everything else. So of course good OS's are replaced by bad OS's.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No, windows would still be a terrible operating system. It only exists because Microsoft's Unix license was in limbo after the government broke up AT&T/Bell Labs. It is an absolute trainwreck of instability, and due to the need for backwards compatibility it always will be.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The radical changes stem from a Microsoft inferiority complex. There's a perception that they've never really invented anything. Their first BASIC interpreter, MS-DOS, Flight Simulator, Windows, .NET, SQL Server- these were all copied, licensed, or acquired. As a result, Microsoft's "holy grail" is inventing something truly novel, like Apple did with the iPhone.

Unfortunately that's just not in their DNA, so "innovative" versions of Windows (like Vista or Windows 8) tend to be really bad. Microsoft's attempts at smartphones (which predate the iPhone) were similarly bad. They're just not a company you can trust to innovate well, and when they throw their big money in that direction some truly terrible things result.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's why they should've stayed with XP. Hell my grandma was even learning it till they threw it all away when Micro'fk decided it should be more difficult to learn and everything much more hidden. Other grandma's were learning it too as XP was at the sweet spot of computers being powerful enough to be useful but simple enough to learn. ME was a horrible experience for many and turned people away and 98 was more for those already with some level of familiarity with computers but still very good usability with only one or two clicks to even do advance features.

We were too far away from her to really help her but Dad tried to go up there to help but one of our family members took the old computer away and gave her an Apple instead which neither she nor dad knew what to do with it! LOL. The family member is an Apple snob and thought it would 'fix' the problems. Now that same person is complaining none of their old music software and other software works since an update about a year or so ago. He's going thru what we went thru with 64 bit back under Obama!

[–]raven9 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Or did Microsoft just become a front for NSA surveillance that wanted to monitor everything everyone uses their computer to illustrate or create? Everyone at Microsoft knows the world wanted Windows XP or Windows 7 and no one asked for Windows 8. No one asked for any of that touch screen phone junkware that only serves to reduce the accuracy of human interactions with the software yet they forced it on everyone and definately no one asked for cloud computing that demands an online presence all of the time.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They are actually making a killing on cloud computing, unlike windows 8 and the smartphones, although I share your sentiment