Home Forums The End of Windows XP

Before I begin Part I of my response, I'd like to remind everyone that our goal here is to gain understanding and make all this stuff work. That being said, I want to known that I understand where you guys are coming from. Change is tough. And these days it seems like the only thing happening is change or the whole world is against you.

Bert and DocMartin



I'd like to point out how completely different your responses are. One is saying it was a mistake for MS to move forward without taking in feedback from customers. The other is saying Apple should have never taken feedback from customers.

What we must understand is that you are both right and you are both wrong. I agree that it was a mistake for Steven Sinofsky to move forward with Windows 8 the way he did. Indeed, he paid for that decision because he has since been removed from Microsoft. So have many others. On the other hand, I can't see any other way for Windows 8 to have played out. Microsoft, put simply, had to move forward and in my professional opinion they did it the best way they could. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of third party applications, such as Amazing Charts, that MS must maintain compatibility for. Yet, they have to enable Windows for touch. No one is going to purchase a new copy of Windows, regardless of how awesome it is, if it will not run their old applications. This is the reason why Windows 8.x Pro is outrageously outselling Windows RT. So, how do you enable your OS to run on tablets, run on laptops, run on PC's, and run all the latest touch applications people want but at the same time keep all the old applications that were never developed with touch in mind ready to go as well? Already there are posts on this forum from people asking when there will be a touch version of Amazing Charts. Obviously, you need the touch-ready version of Windows here first before you can make the touch version of Amazing Charts. The only way Microsoft could make all this happen was to have a version of Windows with two desktops. One that behaved the old way and one that behaved the touch way.

Some of you say you miss the Start menu and that the Start Screen of Windows 8 is too messy. I disagree. I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 in three separate VM's and I saw the same thing in all three of them: Start menus that were full of crap, utilities, and lots of programs I would never use. I found myself spending several minutes moving icons, right clicking on different programs and choosing "Pin to Start" to get the Start menu to have my most recent programs at the ready. I spent the same amount of time doing that in Windows 8.1. Going from the Start Screen to the all programs list and choosing "PIN TO START SCREEN." However, once I got my Start Screen organized, I find it even easier to get to the program I need than I ever did in that small little Start Menu. It took about two days to get used to the Start screen, mind you, but by the third day I was flowing along like water down a stream.

Indeed, to this day when a client calls up asking to connect to our Terminal Server from Windows 7, walking that client through the Start Menu to find Remote Desktop is an outright pain. I usually just do a join.me remote session with the client and make a shortcut on their desktop for them otherwise they'll never find the Remote Desktop icon in the Start Menu.

Here is a picture of my Start Screen on my computer. Nice and neat.



Microsoft will never make everyone happy and I'm not saying all of you should just love all this. What I am saying is give it a chance. Learn how to use it. We all judged Vista so harshly in 2007 only to praise Windows 7, with its 5 or 6 minor changes, so loudly. The good news is that we do have a Billion Dollar software company that can afford to make mistakes like Vista, mistakes that they can learn from, and apply what they learn to the next release. And, all the while, we can enjoy 10 full years of support on the Windows release we have until those things are ironed out. That being said, if any of you want to stay on Windows 7, there's nothing wrong with that at all and I will fully support your decision - until about the year 2018.

In conclusion: If I can do this, if I can find a way to maintain my efficiency in this sea of change, then I know for a fact that the super-smart people on this forum can do the same. I know you're busy. I know with CMS, HIPAA, MU, ICD-10, and everything else going on that your life is a mess right now. Just understand that you aren't alone and I'm here to help. Perhaps, just perhaps, it may be time to sit down and read a good Windows book by one Paul Thurrot so you can get this behind you and move forward into the future.

I hope everyone will take this post as intended. A show of pragmatism, respect, and hope for a smooth transition.

JamesNT