Heralded as a fundamental shift by Microsoft, 8 was meant to be the XP of its generation, as it changed everything people knew and loved about Windows 7, while attempting to make the transition as seamless as possible with an added sleekness that was ahead of everything before it. And people hated it. They hated it so much that there are blogs dedicated to its unruly design. They hate it so much that now, over a year after its release, people are still writing articles about its failures (Hi, mom!). But before we continue to decry Windows 8 and everything it stands for, let’s take a step back and look at the pattern we have before us.
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 – Good, bad, good, bad, good, bad. An interesting pattern to say the very least, don’t you think? One that’s consistent enough to defy coincidence, too I’d say. Could it be that Windows 8 isn’t doing poorly because of its features, but rather, because Windows 7 was so good for its time that people are hesitant to switch?
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Keep in mind, the only reason Windows 95 users switched to XP is because, by that point, Windows 95 was beyond dated. Similarly, the only reason people running XP traded in their old hardware for Windows 7 was because, some 7 or so years later, their operating system wasn’t up to speed with modern technology and the evolution of features that’d been added to new operating systems in its wake.
Which brings us to Windows 8, couldn’t it be that this new operating system is failing because Windows 7 succeeded? The same way that Windows 98 failed because 95 succeeded, and Vista failed because XP succeeded before it? After all, while there is no start button, and the metro display is different from previous iterations of past operating systems, are those really reason enough to decry everything else about the operating system that’s still, at its heart the Windows we’ve known for all these years?
I don’t think so. Also, one has to realize that if a critic’s biggest complaint about a new operating system is that it doesn’t look like an old one, then it’s not so much an attack on the new operating system as much as it is a praise of sorts for the old. Which, at its core proves the reasoning behind the pattern above, people aren’t neglecting Windows 8 because they hate it and everything it stands for. They’re neglecting it because it’s not what they love in Windows 7.
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Which means we can probably expect a new, successful release in Windows 9 in future years whenever Windows 7 users have finally realized the antiquity of the operating system they’re currently using (this article is being written on Windows 7, at the moment, don’t hate) and jump-ship to the new kid on the block. But should Microsoft be worried? Shouldn’t they be trying to find a way to rectify this gloomy pattern before another operating system (See Chrome OS) comes along and knocks it off of its pedestal in the wake of a poor-received release like Windows 98, Vista, and 8?
Because, at the end of the day, regardless as to why people are using 95 and not 98, XP and not Vista, and 7 and not 8, they’re going to blame the new OS, rather than praise the old. It’s human nature, after-all to be unwelcome to change until said-change is so overwhelmingly better than what we’re used to that we embrace it with open arms. It’s for this reason that we can expect to continue reading articles blasting Windows 8 and its metro screen. That is, of course until Windows 9 comes along.