Why is Windows 8 so unpopular?

[TrainFan475]

Why does almost nobody use windows 8 or 8.1? I've only ever seen one computer in my life with windows 8, at least I think so since it looks similar to Windows 10.

[5x5]

8.1 was hugely more popular than 8 but mostly people stuck to 7 cause change is scary and MUH STURT MENUUU

[Turtle Rig]

4 minutes ago, TrainFan2019 said:

Why does almost nobody use windows 8 or 8.1? I've only ever seen one computer in my life with windows 8, at least I think so since it looks similar to Windows 10.

Because it was the continuation of WIndows Vista and Vista as we know was a mess from the get go.  Worst OS MS ever made.

[lewdicrous]

The UI in windows 10 is heaps better compared to windows 8, imo.

[Mnky313]

3 minutes ago, TrainFan2019 said:

Why does almost nobody use windows 8 or 8.1? I've only ever seen one computer in my life with windows 8, at least I think so since it looks similar to Windows 10.

The fullscreen start menu and it's overall clearly designed for touchscreen or tablet devices and not desktops (not saying it doesn't function on desktops but all the of the UI is larger and simpler.)  It also doesn't help that the performance was bad compared to windows 7 (The same issue that Vista had).

[5x5]

2 minutes ago, Mnky313 said:

The fullscreen start menu and it's overall clearly designed for touchscreen or tablet devices and not desktops (not saying it doesn't function on desktops but all the of the UI is larger and simpler.)  It also doesn't help that the performance was bad compared to windows 7 (The same issue that Vista had).

That's actually not true at all - LTT did a comparison. 8.1 came on top in all the tests followed by 10 and 7

[5x5]

5 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

Because it was the continuation of WIndows Vista and Vista as we know was a mess from the get go.  Worst OS MS ever made.

8/8.1 is not based on Vista. What are you talking about? Vista was hardware intensive but otherwise there was nothing really terrible about it. It was better than the old 98-style Kernels and improved on XP's design

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

8/8.1 is not based on Vista. What are you talking about? Vista was hardware intensive but otherwise there was nothing really terrible about it. It was better than the old 98-style Kernels and improved on XP's design

IIRC LTT even did a revisit video of it a bit ago, it really wasn't bad. What gave it a terrible rep was lazy OEMs, they labeled XP machines as "Vista ready" when it brought a bunch of stuff old PCs couldn't run well. Not really the OS's fault it was put on lower spec hardware than it should have been. 

[Mnky313]

6 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

That's actually not true at all - LTT did a comparison. 8.1 came on top in all the tests followed by 10 and 7

Maybe it wasn't according to benchmarks but because of the bogus animations and extra steps to complete tasks it could have been perceived slower.

Edit: And he benchmarked 8.1, not 8.

[kirashi]

12 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

8.1 was hugely more popular than 8 but mostly people stuck to 7 cause change is scary and MUH STURT MENUUU

Because Windows 8/8.1 had a fullscreen start experience with no way to revert to a Windows 10 style start menu, making for a horrifically terrible navigation workflow if you didn't have a touchscreen device. Plus, Windows 8 has reached end of Mainstream Support as of January 9, 2018, and will reach end of Extended Support on January 10, 2023, so upgrading to Windows 10 really is in people's best interest.

[5x5]

5 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Because Windows 8/8.1 had a fullscreen start experience with no way to revert to a Windows 10 style start menu, making for a horrifically terrible navigation workflow if you didn't have a touchscreen device. Plus, Windows 8 has reached end of Mainstream Support as of January 9, 2018, and will reach end of Extended Support on January 10, 2023, so upgrading to Windows 10 really is in people's best interest.

I feel people blew the start menu thing way out of proportion. It wasn't nearly as unusable or cumbersome as people would have me believe

[flibberdipper]

Change is bad, and people are idiots. That's really it.

 

Genuinely if it weren't for UWP games I'd still probably be on 8.1 because it gave me less problems than 10, and seemingly unlike most people I have this strange ability to adapt to a different start menu. Hell, I rather liked it.

[5x5]

12 minutes ago, Mnky313 said:

Maybe it wasn't according to benchmarks but because of the bogus animations and extra steps to complete tasks it could have been perceived slower.

Edit: And he benchmarked 8.1, not 8.

8 and 8.1 were pretty similar in performance, though

[kirashi]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

I feel people blew the start menu thing way out of proportion. It wasn't nearly as unusable or cumbersome as people would have me believe

Oh I agree - I was mostly speaking from a logical point of view. Using the fullscreen start menu wasn't impossible, but sure was annoying if I was watching a video in say the upper-right corner of my screen and wanted to open up an application, because the start menu took over your whole screen. I'm just happy they were able to compromise and give us a customizable start menu with Windows 10 - on tablets, I enable fullscreen start, but on desktops I kinda like the hybrid approach Microsoft took.
 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

i like Windows 8.1. it's a nice stable OS. however it's missing a lot of features and Windows 10 has become so good now that i don't really see a point in using 8.1. 

[spartaman64]

8 was terrible because of the tablet UI and at first you cant get out of it but later they added a desktop mode but you have to switch to it but 8.1 is ok since i can completely ignore it

[GoodBytes]

20 hours ago, 5x5 said:

8/8.1 is not based on Vista. What are you talking about? Vista was hardware intensive but otherwise there was nothing really terrible about it. It was better than the old 98-style Kernels and improved on XP's design

Actually, Windows 7, 8, .1, and 10 are all based on Vista.

The reason why Vista was on the buggy side at release (they should have waiting an extra year in my opinion, but I guess waiting the already 6 years wait was getting too much for the company), is that Microsoft recorded large portions of the OS. XP was horrible in security and has sucked in massive amount of resources from the company just to maintain it... I guess that is why they decided to not wait another year.

 

Windows Me and 98 is based on 95, where 95 is an massive evolution over what it is based on, Windows 3.x and older, where the GUI is... well... basically (to make is simple) a skin, over command prompt...

 

[wasab]

cuz it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

[SkilledRebuilds]

Using Start8 (Win7 Menu) on day one  for me using Windows 8.1

I loved it over Windows7.

Task Manager was What I wanted updated for years, and it wa faster vs Win7 on MY 4790K.

 

Absolutely loved it..  (but hated the FULLSCREEN Start) which was sorted.