Windows 8 on the desktop, while presenting some intriguing evolutionary possibilities, seems like an unstable transitional form. I do not use touch or tablet platform and consequently, I have not seen any compelling reasons for upgrading my fleet of Thinkpads from Windows 7.
My experience managing Windows servers is rapidly improving. More and more servers are running Core and I'm performing ever more administration remotely by command line using PowerShell.
I bring up Windows Server because, on that platform, Microsoft is clearly articulating a change in their philosophy of system administration. The interactive or scripted command-line is the future of Microsoft server administration. It exposes the underlying management and instrumenting capabilities of Windows in highly useful ways and allows consistent workflows for managing traditional deployments and virtual/cloud systems. They have been clear about this direction for years, and they have facilitated a long transition by continuing to provide the option to use full graphical installs, and by providing management consoles for their major products that simply execute PowerShell commands in the background.
Maybe I just haven't seen it because I don't follow the consumer facing groups at Microsoft very closely, but I wish Microsoft would take a similarly approach for the desktop.
Whenever I read these articles, I am thankful I am not an ISV developing for the Windows desktop.
I am actively against Windows 8 in a Domain environment as the system has severe permissions issues for workstations with multiple users. It seems that the first user to install items, create directories, etc. becomes the overall master of them and this makes even basic SysPrep difficult. I am tearing my hair out trying to get terminal servers and cloning projects done, stuff that was a breeze on Windows 7 in comparison. I wish Microsoft was smart enough to differentiate between their home consumers and their business consumers.
Our guess is that the issues will continue to keep us on Windows 7 into the next school year. I get the sick feeling we will skip 8 like we skipped Vista.
Windows 8 on the desktop has failed for me twice; the home OS build had issues so was changed to Mint Linux and the work/personal laptop Windows 8.1 build broke during normal use. I have chosen to Install Ubuntu on this computer and have a Windows 7 under VMWare Workstation. That has become the greatest OS(s) for me, installing Windows 7 in the background with VMWare for the Enterprise Software and keeping Linux forefront for the rest.
The thing that gets me is the constant upgrading of Microsoft products with exuberant costs with little room to upgrade, migrate, rollback, repair or anything for that without either spending more money and/or finding ways to fix yourself. At least with Linux, the community is trying to help you out and not forced to use a script on what to discuss or share as a fix. As long as Microsoft is not listening to the community, they will go down these odd paths and continue to keep those who support them lost, trying to keep up; before finally giving up. It sucks that they along with Apple are allowed to squeeze open source of technology and not even making good use of all these patents, partnerships and agreements. Maybe these f the world guys are onto something.
My experience managing Windows servers is rapidly improving. More and more servers are running Core and I'm performing ever more administration remotely by command line using PowerShell.
I bring up Windows Server because, on that platform, Microsoft is clearly articulating a change in their philosophy of system administration. The interactive or scripted command-line is the future of Microsoft server administration. It exposes the underlying management and instrumenting capabilities of Windows in highly useful ways and allows consistent workflows for managing traditional deployments and virtual/cloud systems. They have been clear about this direction for years, and they have facilitated a long transition by continuing to provide the option to use full graphical installs, and by providing management consoles for their major products that simply execute PowerShell commands in the background.
Maybe I just haven't seen it because I don't follow the consumer facing groups at Microsoft very closely, but I wish Microsoft would take a similarly approach for the desktop.
Whenever I read these articles, I am thankful I am not an ISV developing for the Windows desktop.