Dear Microsoft, about windows 8...

[flip-mode]

The situation is different now, so this isn't really a valid comparison. Linux is a lot closer to being viable as a general purpose desktop than it was 12 years ago, and for a fair number of people it's already there.

I'm not seeing it as very much different at all. Linux's share of the desktop OS market remains fantastically low - down in the very low single digits. Isn't that about where it was 12 years ago? The OS itself is fine and isn't not the OS that keeping people from using the OS. It's the applications. There a Kapllication or Gnomlication for just about every PC application out there, but 95% of the time they're not nearly as good and they have a completely different look and feel. Wine? Yeah, not happening unless you're a geek's geek. Linux needs the entire line up of Adobe, Autodesk, Quickbooks, Turbotax, and Microsoft applications running on it before large numbers of people would ever consider switching. It's not the OS. It's the apps.

The only big difference from 12 years ago is the number of apps that run in the cloud. That may one day make a difference, but even then the odds are against it.

[Jigar]

Google genuinely sucks when it comes to being an application developer.

Can you back this up with an example ?

As I said: Sketchup and Picassa. Google bought them and then did not do a damn thing to develop them, improve them, expand them, update them, bring progress to them. All Google did was plug them into Google's services. I'm not saying the apps sucked - Sketchup is wonderful but not much more wonderful that it was in 2006 - I'm saying that Google does not care about the apps, Google only cares about using the apps to get people using Google services.

You have a point, i was going to back them for their OS development, but you do have a valid point.

[sweatshopking]

If an application wants su privileges it's a crap shoot if the damn UAC window will come up. Sometimes it will place it self behind all of the other windows you have open. Great! So you've been waiting there for 30 seconds for no apparent reason.
Yes, Linux has costs. However, the argument is that the costs associated with it are lower than what happens when you have MS everywhere. The licensing issues alone can require a MS licensing specialist (yes they exist). Rarely is that required in Linux.

first point is fair. i'm not going to say UAC is something i use, or recommend. i can appreciate it's goal, but personally, i don't use it, so i can't say how well it functions. i've heard it's not amazing. That's a separate issue than the program freezing, which i have regularly on a variety of linux builds. i realize it's anecdotal, but that's what i've got.

You're right about licensing, it can be a mess. And you're right that it might (depending on your situation) in the long run be cheaper for linux. But to pretend that linux is a magic solution of free computers that work perfectly (as many linux nerds act like) is totally incorrect.

[just brew it!]

you're aware that in the corporate world linux isn't free? you think red hat does it out of the goodness of their heart? Linux has costs. Tons.

Agreed. But they come from a different place: IMO most of the costs are due to lack of familiarity (from both end users and admins), brain-dead IE-specific intranet apps, and imperfect file compatibility between LibreOffice and MS Office. The first and second issues are a matter of training users, admins, and developers (which yes, I agree, has significant costs); the third is something which may never be completely solved.

RHEL isn't the only game in town; Debian Stable has enterprise-grade stability, and is free.

a belief that windows is inferior is from pre-2003 days. there are plenty of windows boxes with years of uptime.

Yes, Windows has come a long way in this regard. But it still requires a reboot after installation of updates in far too many cases; so you only get that phenomenal uptime if you never update!

Servers ARE linux. Desktop boxes? that's another mess altogether. Servers do a limited set of tasks, but desktop is a totally other creature. the desktop would be lucky to be as stable as windows. God knows i have far fewer "not responding" applications on windows than i do on linux. I know the "that's the applications, not the os" but i've had plenty of system apps not responding. NM the fact that most distro's suck. I've STILL never had mint install properly. been trying for like 4 editions now, on like 5 computers. every time there is a problem. i realize it's anecdotal, but a belief that linux is superior on the desktop simply isn't realistic.

Well, my experience is pretty much the opposite. But for any system I actually care about I run the Ubuntu LTS releases, on hardware that is at least as old as the version I'm using. IMO both of these factors are major contributors to a smooth OOB experience.

you're right it's going more to html5, which is cross platform. I love linux, i've been running a variety of distro's for close to a decade. I like them, and i enjoy using them. But they're not comparable to windows.

Blanket statements like that are dangerous. I actually agree with you that it isn't comparable for a majority of people. But for certain use cases (mine, for example) it isn't just comparable... it is preferable.

[just brew it!]

The situation is different now, so this isn't really a valid comparison. Linux is a lot closer to being viable as a general purpose desktop than it was 12 years ago, and for a fair number of people it's already there.

I'm not seeing it as very much different at all. Linux's share of the desktop OS market remains fantastically low - down in the very low single digits. Isn't that about where it was 12 years ago?

1. I said it was a lot closer to being viable. It does a lot more of the things that desktop users expect, and provides a much smoother OOB experience than back when ME was released. I didn't say it had already gained a ton of market share.

2. Even though the share is still fantastically low, I'd be willing to bet there are many times more Linux desktop users now than there were then. A decade ago, I personally knew one Linux desktop user, among all my personal and professional contacts. Today there are three just here in the office where I work (and several more who run it in VMs for specific tasks). If you start from really close to zero, even growing your user base by 1000% (just to pull a number out of my butt) still leaves you with a very small share!

[Scrotos]

If LInux even doubles its marketshare due to Windows 8, I'll post a video of myself eating cat poop.

A loophole appears.

An expensive loophole, but given the alternative...

Man, this is some Connections kinda stuff you got goin' on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)

At least, that's what I thought of.

"So as you can see, because of the ecological pressures that caused these small mammals to prefer a diet of coffee beans, this has enabled Vrock to properly consume cat feces in a civilized manner."

[Captain Ned]

"So as you can see, because of the ecological pressures that caused these small mammals to prefer a diet of coffee beans, this has enabled Vrock to properly consume cat feces in a civilized manner."

And I can so see James Burke uttering that line. Well done.

[ludi]

Some of your arguments I would sort of agree with. But ^^ this one isn't one of them. Vista/Windows 7 brought into the world the issue of waiting for applications to respond. If an application wants su privileges it's a crap shoot if the damn UAC window will come up. Sometimes it will place it self behind all of the other windows you have open. Great! So you've been waiting there for 30 seconds for no apparent reason. Linux desktop has compatibility issues with regards to running applications that WIndow's users prefer, but it runs miles better in every day use than Windows 7 or Vista.

UAC on Win7 (after being de-tweaked from Original Vista) generally works fine, in my experience. The loss of the UAC notification behind something else usually occurs when the application invoking the UAC prompt is being run behind a foreground application. Since Win7 is more aggressive about preventing background applications from stealing focus, that's the trade-off that occurs. However, the application that has generated the notification, be it a UAC prompt or anything else, will still generate an icon highlight in the taskbar.

As long as you're paying attention to what the system is doing, and not just what the foreground application is doing, this is a minor inconvenience IMO. And if you're not paying attention to what the system is doing, then you're exactly the kind of user that needs UAC watching your back.

[flip-mode]

The situation is different now, so this isn't really a valid comparison. Linux is a lot closer to being viable as a general purpose desktop than it was 12 years ago, and for a fair number of people it's already there.

I'm not seeing it as very much different at all. Linux's share of the desktop OS market remains fantastically low - down in the very low single digits. Isn't that about where it was 12 years ago?

1. I said it was a lot closer to being viable. It does a lot more of the things that desktop users expect, and provides a much smoother OOB experience than back when ME was released. I didn't say it had already gained a ton of market share.

2. Even though the share is still fantastically low, I'd be willing to bet there are many times more Linux desktop users now than there were then. A decade ago, I personally knew one Linux desktop user, among all my personal and professional contacts. Today there are three just here in the office where I work (and several more who run it in VMs for specific tasks). If you start from really close to zero, even growing your user base by 1000% (just to pull a number out of my butt) still leaves you with a very small share!

None of that speaks to the main point: Lack of popular applications = lack of adoption. If I could get the small handful of applications that I use running natively on Linux, I'd never have another Windows machine. That is THE roadblock; at least, that's my theory, because, as you say, the Linux distros themselves offer a pretty fantastic install and OOB experience - BETTER than Windows by a good stretch. So the problem isn't the OS, it's the 3rd party applications.

[Scrotos]

Even corporate users would be happy to switch to Linux I think. Most servers are Linux, and it would simplify licensing, infrastructure and other issues. It's just that many apps are Windows only, and users have poor training in regards to Linux, and that is a problem. But with all the diversity in consumer space - iStuff, Android stuff, Linux stuff and Surface stuff, things might start to normalize, which might be just enough.

You no longer feel excluded from the world if you run Linux, and R&D from Android and Mac is actually having it's positive influence too. Also, HTML5 based apps and stuff like that also make sure that stuff is no longer made on Windows for Windows. Every successful company wants to cover as many platforms as possible nowadays. And that means they are a lot more Linux friendly.

Well, we're successful [as a company] and we're staying way away from Linux on the desktop. Simplify licensing? The only Linux systems we have are closed appliances from vendors. Our own stuff runs MS. How are we gonna run Office? In WINE or something? Absolutely no one here wants to relearn an office suite and hope that Libre Office or Apache Open Office or whatever will do what they need it to do like run VB macros in spreadsheets. We lock stuff down with GPOs right now in our MS realm; no idea how to administer Linux boxes from Windows servers.

Absolutely zero of our employees want to relearn their workflow just to embrace an "open" OS. Few of our vendors want to test for interoperability with more than the dominant OS/browser combo. Even those that do use a *nix are closed to us. Like that other guy said, it's building a better walled garden for many vendors.

I think you have a naieve worldview. And I'm not trying to be mean by stating that; I just think you've got certain ideological things going on in your brain-meats and haven't seen how that stuff doesn't fly in the "real world." Now maybe you're in an industry where people embrace this stuff, ok, but I'm not and the many customers I've dealt with (other companies) are also very solidly in the MS camp.

No one wants to relearn how to do their job just for fun. MS does that with each Office and OS release, change for change's sake, but that's why we have stuff like Classic Shell to help retain our current workflow and disrupt the business as little as possible.

[just brew it!]

None of that speaks to the main point: Lack of popular applications = lack of adoption.

Yup, no argument there. I was merely responding to your assertion that things hadn't changed since 12 years ago. I would be surprised if desktop adoption was more than a small fraction of a percent back then. It is likely to be (as you say) "very low single digits" today.

@Scrotos - Exactly. Hence my comment from a few posts back that Linux will hit 10% desktop market share in the corporate space "when pigs fly".

[BobbinThreadbare]

They don't care to make the effort to realize, dude. And even if they did, they'd just shrug and keep what they already have: Windows. That's what you don't get. People don't care about Linux. Windows costs them nothing (essentially, it comes with the computer they bought), it runs all their stuff,

All agreed, which is the main problem. Linux doesn't offer a compelling reason to switch in many cases.

they know how to use it

Disagree. In my experience the average person does not know how to use Windows any more than they know how to use any computer. You could put any decent Linux desktop in front of them, tell them it's a new version of Windows and they would have no idea that's wrong.

[absurdity]

Even corporate users would be happy to switch to Linux I think.

I just can't believe you know much about the corporate workplace if you're making a statement like that. The management tools Microsoft has available are pretty amazing and I'm not sure you can match a lot of it on a Linux platform. As has been outlined too, the applications are key. For an end-user, that's what an OS does, it allows access to applications. Linux has got to get there before it's even worth discussion.

[kc77]

That's a separate issue than the program freezing, which i have regularly on a variety of linux builds. i realize it's anecdotal, but that's what i've got.

I include it because until you click on the UAC window the application that spawns it is frozen. Now if that was the end of it maybe you could overlook it. However, IE8/9 alone is enough to spawn more than enough complaints. Don't think so? Download a large file through IE, go get some coffee and call me in the morning and then tell me which is worse. Linux with Chrome or Firefox or Win7 with IE.

Here's another how about mapped drives? This is completely reproducable map a network drive. Then make it unavailable. Fire up Word go to open document and click on browse. You will be stuck here until Windows stops trying to scan the formerly available mapped drive.

Windows has tons of gems like these that Linux just doesn't have. More often than not if it's in repo as a tested package it will be quite stable. I seriously can't remember an application hanging. I run Linux for weeks at a time without reboot or an application hanging.

You're right about licensing, it can be a mess. And you're right that it might (depending on your situation) in the long run be cheaper for linux. But to pretend that linux is a magic solution of free computers that work perfectly (as many linux nerds act like) is totally incorrect.

Oh no one in thier right mind would say that running Linux is free but it can be damn close to that if you know what you are doing and choose to implement it in places where Linux is a good fit.

[just brew it!]

Actual snippet of a conversation I had recently regarding a job opening that involved working with Linux servers:

Me: ...and I've been running Linux as my desktop operating system for several years now.

Recruiter: Really? I didn't know you could do that!

Some corporate types don't even realize that desktop Linux exists. I'm sure there are a lot more who are at least vaguely aware of its existence, but have never seen it "in the flesh".

[kc77]

UAC on Win7 (after being de-tweaked from Original Vista) generally works fine, in my experience. The loss of the UAC notification behind something else usually occurs when the application invoking the UAC prompt is being run behind a foreground application. Since Win7 is more aggressive about preventing background applications from stealing focus, that's the trade-off that occurs. However, the application that has generated the notification, be it a UAC prompt or anything else, will still generate an icon highlight in the taskbar.

As long as you're paying attention to what the system is doing, and not just what the foreground application is doing, this is a minor inconvenience IMO. And if you're not paying attention to what the system is doing, then you're exactly the kind of user that needs UAC watching your back.

Again you would have a point if Linux didn't have this feature for over a decade. Gnome and KDE have graphical interfaces for granting su access. They don't have this problem. It's not about watching what the system is doing. It's about the DE granting focus to those things that need it and then getting out of the way. The DE either does this correctly or it doesn't.

[Madman]

As I said: Sketchup and Picassa. Google bought them and then did not do a damn thing to develop them, improve them, expand them, update them, bring progress to them.

Actually there are a lot of applications that don't need upgrading, pretty please! What upgrading does is - it sticks ribbon on file explorer... Or does a custom draw GUI, which NEVER ends well. GPU issues, missing accessibility interfaces, broken shortcuts, non-working tab, etc.

Upgrade has to have a good reason where it adds value, and not makes things shiny to get more marketing attention.

Improved document search - fine.
OS that automatically crawls all your pictures and documents and posts them on Facebook and cloud because it's what cool kids do - not fine
Default save to cloud - not fine

Well, we're successful [as a company] and we're staying way away from Linux on the desktop. Simplify licensing? The only Linux systems we have are closed appliances from vendors. Our own stuff runs MS. How are we gonna run Office? In WINE or something? Absolutely no one here wants to relearn an office suite and hope that Libre Office or Apache Open Office or whatever will do what they need it to do like run VB macros in spreadsheets. We lock stuff down with GPOs right now in our MS realm; no idea how to administer Linux boxes from Windows servers.

I think you have a naieve worldview.

Actually there is a great chance that it's the opposite. You know why? It's because I can relate to every single sentence you wrote. I was working in pretty much MS exclusive IT development company for 5+ years. MSDN subscriptions, Visio on every corner, all latest and greatest OSes, Sharepoint, MS development methodologies, even had to code some Sharepoint plugins via web services, web services themselves as such and stuff. Had to administer clusters of Win server boxes, etc. You name it.

And then I managed to find some tasks and interests outside Microsoft world, and, hey, here I am a few years later, running Linux PCs and servers exclusively at home.

There is just one thing you have to understand straight out. You should never compare the amazing MS infrastructure and tools vs Linux infrastructure and tools. And the main reason being that most of them solve problems that they created in the first place.

SSH + Linux terminal + everything is a file infrastructure does in three lines what Windows needs whole modules, app frontends and GPOs for. SVN does in 3 lines what whole TFS tries to replicate.

They are just different, they have different problems and different solutions. And you are hearing that from a 15+ year Windows only fanboy, so yeah...

It's really just a matter of workflow, sometimes simple things are just so much better.

I do miss the Visual Studio when I'm on Linux though. The integration of that thing is amazing. But other than that, there is zero difference between Windows and Linux, they are simply different. And if you open your mind, you might see that different doesn't mean worse by any means. Some of the extra bureaucracy and kludges like Sharepoint migration and administration, ZOMG this, simply don't exist in the first place.

Or how 500MB Visual Studio SP runs out of disk space after 3 hours when there are 8GB of free space on the disk, and then crashes on rollback, and ruins the whole system, ahhh, sweet memories...

The only actual problem is games... Linux lacks there very badly. Everything else is just a matter of how much you can accept working differently, not worse, just differently. Cut some cruft here and there, use some other approaches there, and that's it.

they know how to use it

Disagree. In my experience the average person does not know how to use Windows any more than they know how to use any computer. You could put any decent Linux desktop in front of them, tell them it's a new version of Windows and they would have no idea that's wrong.

Nope, there is one huge difference. The Linux PCs I set up, doesn't need a reinstall after 3-6 months, and it doesn't make me ZOMG like when I see spyware ridden app startup sequences on Windows boxes, just after a few weeks of use.

Overall, I'm not a Linux fanboy, I'm equally satisfied with Windows 7/Windows Server 2k3/2k8 [not Windows 8] or Linux Mint/Debian. But given how Linux is free, and how it could become so much better if it had some app support, I am inclined towards supporting it, rather than something like Win 8.

My mind is also a LOT easier about Linux too, the amount of harmful code you can get while using Linux is almost nonexistent when compared to Windows.

[Glorious]

Some of the extra bureaucracy and kludges like Sharepoint migration and administration, ZOMG this, simply don't exist in the first place.

So... the complete lack of a group policy concept is seen as a good thing from your perspective?

It's not like Corporate America will miss that, or anything, right?

[Madman]

Some of the extra bureaucracy and kludges like Sharepoint migration and administration, ZOMG this, simply don't exist in the first place.

So... the complete lack of a group policy concept is seen as a good thing from your perspective?

It's not like Corporate America will miss that, or anything, right?

You have a talent in finding some inconsistency in what I say, and rephrasing it into something I never meant...

Concerning bureaucracy, I meant all those heavyweight Sharepoint portals, tons of Visios, advanced graphics filled word documents and so on. A lot of projects just fare so much better with SVN + Wiki and some normal meetings.

And no one is arguing that access control is unnecessary, it is, and it's available. But when you look at the issues from MS developers perspective it can get unnecessary complex. The same TFS, it has access control on SQL side, TFS side, Web site, IIS, GPO and some other components. It's a complete nightmare to remember all the steps that are required to just add a new user with custom access control. And these issues usually take weeks to iron out.

[Glorious]

You have a talent in finding some inconsistency in what I say, and rephrasing it into something I never meant...

Uh-huh. Let's roll back time:

Well, we're successful [as a company] and we're staying way away from Linux on the desktop. Simplify licensing? The only Linux systems we have are closed appliances from vendors. Our own stuff runs MS. How are we gonna run Office? In WINE or something? Absolutely no one here wants to relearn an office suite and hope that Libre Office or Apache Open Office or whatever will do what they need it to do like run VB macros in spreadsheets.We lock stuff down with GPOs right now in our MS realm; no idea how to administer Linux boxes from Windows servers.

I think you have a naieve worldview.

You respond by saying the following:

Actually there is a great chance that it's the opposite. You know why? It's because I can relate to every single sentence you wrote.

There is just one thing you have to understand straight out. You should never compare the amazing MS infrastructure and tools vs Linux infrastructure and tools. And the main reason being that most of them solve problems that they created in the first place.

The one I understood straight out was that you obviously had no idea what the heck you were talking about.

And you clearly don't.

The amazing Microsoft infrastructure consists of a LOT MORE than just sharepoint, are you really that daft?

[BIF]

...most distro's suck. I've STILL never had mint install properly. been trying for like 4 editions now, on like 5 computers...

I too have had trouble, but not as much as you because I stop trying for very very long stretches of time.

Linux asks too many questions at install time that I don't know how to answer.
Linux should (but does not) ignore USB devices that it does not recognize.

For the first, it's just not easy enough yet.
For the second, it causes problems that make me throw up my hands in frustration.

No, I'm not going to start unplugging all of my USB devices just to run Linux. I understand that some will not have drivers, and I'm okay with that. But leaving them plugged in should not cause malfunctions, crashes, or annoying nag messages.

[ludi]

Again you would have a point if Linux didn't have this feature for over a decade. Gnome and KDE have graphical interfaces for granting su access. They don't have this problem. It's not about watching what the system is doing. It's about the DE granting focus to those things that need it and then getting out of the way. The DE either does this correctly or it doesn't.

You mean, like a little window that pops up and requests that the user confirm su access? If your point is that Microsoft was behind the curve in implementing a proper security structure, then sure, everyone's said so for years. Otherwise, I'm having trouble following your claim. You cited UAC as an example of Windows applications stalling or something, but I've never seen it happen except when the user has switched applications and the UAC alert is prevented from stealing focus. I can see where this might bug the daylights out of a system tech who does nothing but reconfigure machines all day, but for the average user it works exactly as it should IME.

[derFunkenstein]

As a user - not an administrator, mind you - sharepoint is pretty frickin sweet. You can have my Win7 work box when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[just brew it!]

Again you would have a point if Linux didn't have this feature for over a decade. Gnome and KDE have graphical interfaces for granting su access. They don't have this problem. It's not about watching what the system is doing. It's about the DE granting focus to those things that need it and then getting out of the way. The DE either does this correctly or it doesn't.

You mean, like a little window that pops up and requests that the user confirm su access? If your point is that Microsoft was behind the curve in implementing a proper security structure, then sure, everyone's said so for years. Otherwise, I'm having trouble following your claim. You cited UAC as an example of Windows applications stalling or something, but I've never seen it happen except when the user has switched applications and the UAC alert is prevented from stealing focus. I can see where this might bug the daylights out of a system tech who does nothing but reconfigure machines all day, but for the average user it works exactly as it should IME.

Well, I suppose it is a matter of whether you consider the security popup to be application modal or system modal. I personally think the latter approach is more "correct," but clearly that's a matter of opinion.

And then there are the cases where Windows pops up a confirmation dialog underneath a progress window the system has itself opened (no need for the user to have manually switched away). That's REALLY aggravating, but to be fair I haven't seen that behavior since the XP SP3 installer (got burned by it a few times back in the day though).

[just brew it!]

Linux asks too many questions at install time that I don't know how to answer.

Upon booting the installation CD, Ubuntu asks the following questions:

Screen 1 - Select language from a list (defaults to English), and buttons for Try Ubuntu or Install Ubuntu (with some text underneath that explains the choices in more detail)

Screen 2 (assuming you selected Install) - Two check boxes to tell the installer whether to download updates in the background while installing, and whether you want to install support for Flash and MP3 during initial setup.

Screen 3 - Choose whether to use the entire hard drive or go into the partition manager to do something non-standard.

Screen 4 (assuming you chose to use the entire drive) - Cancel or Install Now

Screen 5 - Choose your time zone (defaults to the correct zone automatically if your network cable is plugged in and you have a broadband connection)

Screen 6 - Choose your keyboard layout from a list (defaults to US English, at least here in the US; default might change based on selected language and/or time zone, not sure)

Screen 7 - Text fields for your full name, the name of the computer on the network, the login name you want to use, your password, and a check box to indicate whether you want the system to log you in automatically when it boots up or require you to enter your password.

That's it. Several minutes and one reboot later, you're at the login screen (or the desktop, if you chose automatic login on Screen 7).

Just out of curiosity, which of the above steps do you consider unnecessary and/or confusing?

[Madman]

Then on the first boot it pops a information that proprietary GPU drivers are available for install if you wish. Clicking on activate will install the latest one.

And, IIRC, Mint install was even easier. You boot from live DVD, click install. You don't even get nagged about "Try", and "Flash/MP3 and video codecs" are installed by default.

[flip-mode]

The only actual problem is games... Linux lacks there very badly. Everything else is just a matter of how much you can accept working differently, not worse, just differently. Cut some cruft here and there, use some other approaches there, and that's it.

Wow. Total baloney. Perhaps you must be thinking only of the needs that you are familiar with while being completely ignorant of the needs of others. It would be instanity for an architectural office to try to deploy Linux as the desktop OS. None of the industry standard tools that architects use run natively on Linux - Autocad, Revit, Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketchup, MS Office (and yes, it *must* be MS Office, as far as I know, and not any alternative because all of the specification writing tools are written as plugins for MS Word).

Nope, there is one huge difference. The Linux PCs I set up, doesn't need a reinstall after 3-6 months

What in the /world/ are you doing to your computers? I know of NO ONE - literally NO ONE - that has needed a clean install of windows in just 3-6 months. At work we have machines that have been chugging along on 4-5 year old installs of Windows. NONE of our Windows 7 machines have needed a reinstall. This is pure nonsense that you're talking or else you have experienced a very, very isolated problem. There is simply no person I know that has needed a reinstall of Windows in 3-6 months time; it's an absurd claim to say that needing to do so is anything but extremely rare.

FWIW, I'm a Linux fan. I have Ubuntu 12.04 running here at home. I've suggested to other people that they perhaps consider it. I've urged my wife to use the Ubuntu machine for Internet tasks. I've been lightly toying with Linux distros for about a decade now. I've deployed a Linux server at work, which the company had never done before. I'm "pro-Linux". I'd love it for Linux to become very much a mainstream choice. But Linux just won't be able to be my primary OS because the tools that I depend on are not available on Linux and there are no viable alternatives to those tools. And it's that way for most everyone else too. Until you get all the popular 3rd party software ported to run on Linux, "you're gonna have a bad time".

[just brew it!]

I consider myself quite fortunate that the 3rd party application I currently use the most at work (Quartus II FPGA design suite) does come in a native Linux version. The Windows Quartus users are even a little jealous of the fact that I can easily organize multiple Quartus sessions using Linux virtual desktops.

We've got other people in the office who need to run stuff like Altium and SolidWorks though; for them, Linux isn't even an option. And I've still got a Windows VM for the obligatory Outlook e-mail client and IE (for our idiotic IE-specific corporate Intranet apps).

[Meadows]

that is build around the app store

The start menu didn't disappeared

At worse,

no different what happened

Which country are you from again?

To top it off, you're wrong. The UI changed dramatically compared to current Windows versions, and this is causing the outrage. Nobody has any problem with how W8 runs behind the scenes; indeed, it's better than ever. But users are sitting in front of the scenes, and the curtains no longer match the paint.

[Glorious]

Well, I suppose it is a matter of whether you consider the security popup to be application modal or system modal. I personally think the latter approach is more "correct," but clearly that's a matter of opinion.

Well, I'm on your side of that argument too. It seems pretty clear-cut to me.

And then there are the cases where Windows pops up a confirmation dialog underneath a progress window the system has itself opened (no need for the user to have manually switched away). That's REALLY aggravating, but to be fair I haven't seen that behavior since the XP SP3 installer (got burned by it a few times back in the day though).

I swear something like that has happened to me once or twice on windows 7. I might have switched away, but I don't think so. Either way I was confused as all heck about it.

And I've still got a Windows VM for the obligatory Outlook e-mail client and IE (for our idiotic IE-specific corporate Intranet apps).

Those two things are pretty much only things (except it's lotus notes) I use windows for at work too. Well, except when I end up fixing other people's stupid windows crap. Grr.