Linked by David Adams on Fri 2nd Mar 2012 15:55 UTC, submitted by sawboss
By all early reports, Windows 8 is going to be a good operating system. Microsoft's hegemony may be crumbling in a mobile computing onslaught, but its core empire remains undimmed. However, whereas Windows 7 had three versions, Windows 8 will apparently be ballooning to 9 versions.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-12-04
Which cool features?
No doubt everyone could make their own list, but:
1. Single user Terminal Services (OS X includes VNC based screen sharing);
2. Previous Versions (OS X includes Time Machine);
3. Full disk encryption (OS X includes FileVault);
(etc)
There's lots of them, but the UI is the worst part. It's not present but disabled, it doesn't give informative messages saying it's not available in a given addition. It's just silently not there. The user is left wondering _how_ to change Starter Edition wallpaper, and it's not clear at all that a different edition would allow/expose this differently.
Member since:2006-07-30
Member since:2011-01-14
I seriously can't see anyone going and buying a Mac for a feature they could get by upgrading Windows. Have you any examples of such a feature? Terminal services was mentioned as an example - how many people do you really think wouldn't know about different versions of Windows, and yet would see a similar feature on a Mac and think "Wow! This is what I need!"?
Anyone I know who doesn't know of different Windows versions is also hard pushed to understand the difference between a limited user and a root user - if they do switch to a Mac, it would be because it's shiny and silvery (and probably faster than their crapware-infested Windows system), not because of some technical feature they don't understand and never heard of...
Member since:
2006-07-30
And that is the problem. Almost everybody gets a computer with Home Premium, and they have no idea that there is any other version of Windows.
And then later they see a friend using a Mac and see all the cool features they are missing, and instead of upgrading to a higher specced version, they decide that next time they will get a Mac.
Basically, creating so many versions, and crippling the versions that a lot of people use, is damaging to the Windows Brand.