Video I'll give you was a little difficult in the 3.1 era. AVIs worked well but QuickTime was an uphill fight sometimes. I used to have one video where it would interlace wrong and make the picture twice as tall...looked like everyone in it was caught in a transporter stream.

But I had IE, Netscape, mIRC, and AOL on my Windows 3.1 PC. The big problem with shopping was that next to nothing was online in 1992.

One thing that really irks me about Windows 7 is how screwed up the Search and Run commands have become. I want a window with separate boxes for file name patterns and metadata. Navigating what used to be the Control Panel is a nightmare. I just don't get the feel of discrete applets anymore...it's like I'm browsing linked pages.

On my PC, I have some package MS released with the .NET 4 source code. I wanted to see what the CheckedListBox was doing wrong. Luckily, it's 20 folders down but named CheckedListBox.cs and I can find it. Now, some of the calls it makes reference other files that aren't named so well. The search function in Windows Explorer is useless because it either isn't searching their contents or it can't.

Don't get me started on Apple. XCode is the most counter-intuitive piece of software I've ever used.

I'm not trolling but I disagree. I don't see much that couldn't be done before and I sure don't see efficiency.

When you pay for software, or use it for business purposes, "just pick another app" becomes more difficult.

 

Actually, Nintendo of Japan had internet banking via the Famicom almost 30 years ago  

I'd like to hear what changes were required for social networking. Facebook is a webpage that accesses records on a server...the web browser, HTML, TCP/IP, and SQL have been around decades. Even many of the picture/sound formats we use are ancient. Online banking isn't much different conceptually, though we've moved a long way on pretty presentation. That's why I get bent out of shape when some message board hassles me about not having the newest Chrome...it's not necessary.

Likewise, I don't see anything very special about syncing with a vehicle or cellphone. It's comparing two sets of files over a wireless connection that follows the same logical rules as a wired one. The hardware being so locked down makes it seem more magical than it really is.

Wireless device discovery is the big deal here. Wireless anything was practically useless 20 years ago.

Alot of feature lists read to me like meaningless marketspeak because they're too vague or something I was already doing. From a programming point of view, what's dropped and what's required are so often arbitrary. Some of the stuff they tell you isn't exactly true and there's no shame in not having the latest and greatest.

 

I downloaded the preview. I have a PC capable of running it and if I install it and have to reinstall everything, it's no big loss. I'll give it a shot sometime this week. Not quite ready to jump in just yet. Might wait for Tuesday to come and pass, since that's the Windows Update day. Each new update will either make it more stable, or topple it like a house of cards and I want to know which direction before I go to that kind of time consuming trouble.

As for the Metro UI, it's for touch interfaces only and the regular Windows desktop does exist in 8. You don't have to use Metro if you don't want to.

Also, if your PC can run Vista or 7, you can run 8 with no problem.

8 is 32 and 64 bit. Not all computers and tech are 64 bit these days, yet have enough power and resources to run 7 and 8. I doubt we'll see the end of 32 bit computing for quite some time. Most of what you see today was built on that architecture.

Steam and a number of it's games, for example, 32 bit. A service that large, with a fanbase that large...even Microsoft wouldn't alienate them. Those are the people who become early adopters and upgraders. Cutting them off would be stupid for Microsoft.

 

First of all, you have to understand that this preview is equivalent to Windows 7 Tablet edition. It is not the version that will eventually show up on a Desktop PC. There are going to be 6 versions that will be similar to this preview... 4 for ARM, 1 for phone and 1 for tablet. There will still be regular Desktop versions... whether they are still called Pro, HP or whatever is still to be determined. There is no proof whether or not the Desktop version will have a 32bit version. Also consider the fact that the Dev Preview (which includes SQLEXPRESS, Visual Studio and the Signing tool for Metro apps) is only availble in 64bit. There will also be a new Server version which definately won't have a 32bit version.

But you also have to remember that things *change* when it comes to what Microsoft advertises. The initial reports of the 64bit only availability for Windows 8 wasn't that the news said there wouldn't be a 32bit versions. The news initially was that Windows 8 would have a 128bit version. Now, this wouldn't make sense for the Desktop SKUs, but for the Server SKU. Reason being that no Desktop user would be able to AFFORD a computer to run this OS.

The main "problem" is that all this Windows 8 talk, whether it is for phones, Tablets, Appliances (Embedded), Desktops or Servers is that all these different products are being reported as "Windows 8." So while all the news reports are likely true, they aren't talking about just one product... but its being reported as being just one product so it gets confusing.

 

That's how I felt after I got my laptop with Vista and Windows 7 came out.