People at the time (but not a lot of them) were predicting that OS/2 and Mac OS would die out because of Windows 95 and NT.  This of course was not at all obvious coming into 1995, given how much momentum IBM and Apple had, but it's actually what happened.  Microsoft went on to outsmart OS/2 on the compatibility and user-friendliness front, and they became Apple's sugar daddy in order to keep their Office for Mac business alive and kicking.  They won, just like the zealots predicted.

12 hours ago, Dan276 wrote

I have 2 apps on the windows phone market place and various websites which I won't advertise.  I'm talented enough to do many things.  I was also rated 9.5 on Hot or Not website, so yes people do say I'm too good looking to use visual studio.  But let me assure you that I have Visual Studio 2012 and even develop stuff in (WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET, Windows phone 8 and Windows 8 apps).  I even had 2 windows phone 7 apps out before the release date so there's some street cred.

Mm.  So you're a hobbyist software developer, then.  Professional means you do it for a living.  

But never mind that --- what you're actually doing here is telling a bunch of uninterested men about how attractive you are.... why yes, gentlemen, I can code AND I'm hot.... and while it's perfectly okay to be homosexual, Dan, this really isn't the forum to be "picking up" on.

Unfortunately this view won't last forever.  It might be a good idea to leave a comment using the Site Feedback feature at the bottom of the MSDN web site with your rationale about why the traditional tree view still has an important place in MSDN navigation. (which I agree with you 100% on)

As for myself, I'm working on a movie that I put on kickstarter and I pick up a lot of chicks at clubs showing my gamerscore on my phone.  Right now, I'm getting more cred and respect from my cheevos, but later I will probably make a lot of money from it.

So you aren't actually a professional software developer, then, are you?

Don't over-think it.

1 hour ago, BitFlipper wrote

*snip*

It is merely MS placing artificial restrictions in hope to force W8 adoption.

Even if that's the case...... so what?  Windows 8 is significantly better than Windows 7 as an operating system, even if you leave Metro out of the discussion.  Why are you scared of new software all of a sudden?

1 hour ago, magicalclick wrote

What I don't understand is, Win8 is Win7 plus a fancy environment that cannot run VS. So, I don't see why the crappy OS support.

Because Windows 8 ships with Hyper-V 3.0, which relies on support in the OS for second-level address translation (SLAT).  Without this, graphical performance inside the virtual machine is really hampered, and virtual machines require significantly more memory to run since they can't cooperate with the host operating system to dynamically allocate and deallocate memory as needed by the VM.

Keep in mind that a Windows Phone 8 device is going to have something like a dual-core 1.5ghz ARM processor.  That's ARM, not Intel x64 like the host OS.  The virtual machine environment has to be as fast as possible to deliver the kind of perf needed to consistently run at full speed.  This requires cooperation from the host operating system.  Windows 8 was designed for this.  Windows 7 is not.

So it has less to do with the emulator and more to do with MS simply forcing us to use Windows 8.

They want people to use the emulator because Windows Phone applications are expected to run on devices with multiple resolutions, and you are expected to test all of them.  Your physical device has just one.

Not having the emulator is going to limit your ability to be successful in developing an app.  Why would Microsoft support this approach?

17 minutes ago, Dr Herbie wrote

Create a Win8 virtual machine and develop on that?  Might be a little painful at times, but I did this to play with Win8 development before Win8 went RTM (might be OK if you have a beefy machine to run the VM on).

Herbie

This won't work because the Windows Phone Emulator is itself a Hyper-V virtual machine.

Cybermagell​an: Your only option is to have a Windows 8 Pro desktop system.  If your company's IT department refuses to give you such a machine in order to fulfill the company's business requirements of developing a Windows Phone 8 app, then you need to escalate that up the management chain.  IT doesn't get to decide whether you can do your job or not.

It's gonna be fun to see people's confused reactions when they compare how many hours of Netflix you can watch on a Pro versus RT tablet (hint: x86 wins power hands down for video).

I'm not disagreeing with you on the battery life concerns, but this isn't really the target usage for Surface Pro, is it?  Watching that much Netflix in one go usually means you're at home, so you can run a power cable.  No sense in wearing down the battery for no reason beyond a very minor bit of inconvenience.

Though, I'm considering just giving the first round a pass and making a decision on the next iteration of Surface (if one does exist). A little unsure of buying something first gen when it's possible that the second gen will be vastly superior (esp. in terms of fixing any nasty issues).

That's my plan, too.  It sounds like Intel has made some great progress lately in super low-power x86 chips recently so by the end of 2013 I'd expect to see a second-generation Surface Pro that uses a lot less power.  Plus the Windows App Store will be a lot more filled out by then.

13 hours ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

If you want x86, why would you buy at a premium a device with a 10 inch display, when you could just buy an Ultrabook for less with far more power and a bigger screen? Look what you get for $850:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-S3-391-9499-13-3-Inch-Ultrabook-Champagne/dp/B009JXJXAC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357398557&sr=8-1&keywords=Acer+Aspire+S3+i7&tag=hardfocom-20

The Acer S3 has a 1366x768 display and weighs 3 lbs.  The Surface Pro has 1920x1280 and weighs less than 2 lbs.  Also, the S3 is being criticised for not having a particularly good screen, whereas the Surface RT has been widely lauded for having an excellent display, so the Surface Pro is bound to be very good as well.

Those are pretty significant differences, and for some people can justify spending the extra money.  I know for myself I'd refuse to buy a tablet with 1366x768 resolution -- that's less vertical resolution than I had on my Windows 95 desktop in 1996 (!!)  ..... and let's not forget that the iPad offers 2048x1536 resolution. 

..... it's like people forget that there are also console applications in Windows.

All of this bitching and moaning about Metro reminds me of 1995, when Microsoft started to push DOS into the background in favour of their new "for beginners" Windows 95 interface, with its tacky Start menu (complete with an animation on the taskbar to guide peoples' eyes to the bottom-left corner) and keyboard-hostile file management interface.

People who'd spent the last 10-15 years working in DOS (the Lotus and Wordperfect crowd, the gamers, the BBSers, and basically everyone else who wasn't using a Mac) bitched, whined, complained, hemmed, hawed, posted screeds on Usenet, etc., but eventually they adjusted to this new interface.  The apps they wanted to use eventually showed up as native Win32 apps, too.  They managed, right?  I guess some of them fled to Unix systems because they didn't like GUIs.  Fine.  But Windows still went on to 95+% market share on the strength of the boldness of the radical changes behind Windows 95.

*shrug*

Anyways, you are signing up for a web hosting service.  Them having your phone number could actually work in your favour, in the event that Microsoft detects that your site has been compromised and they need to contact you directly, ASAP.  Plus if it's hosting for your business, well, ummm, isn't it a bit disingenuous to describe their asking for your business's phone number as a "brazen, shameless, intrusion into our personal lives"?

I mean, come on.... tone down the flaming BS just a little bit there.

This is, of course, exactly the same as the last three versions of Windows, so it shouldn't be a revelation.  The only difference is that it looks different.

Pin anything you use all the time on the task bar, and remove them from Start.
Remove other items you don't need to see every day. 
All apps are always available through keyboard search and via the All Apps option.

Oh, and if you want to add more items vertically, go to Start -> Settings -> Tiles -> Show more tiles.

As a side note, it's pretty cool that you can just hit Windows + W to do a settings search, type "rename", and easily get to the option to rename the computer.

5 hours ago, evildictait​or wrote

On what planet is Javascript anywhere near to the "lowest level"?

Earth.  People are building x86 emulators and Linux kernels written in JavaScript.  As Scott Hanselman has repeatedly pointed out in the last year or so, JavaScript is the assembly language of the web. 

If you haven't watched his presentation from build, you owe it yourself to do so.  Probably the best level-setting presentation about how things actually are in the 2010s I've seen. 

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-027

18 minutes ago, NitzWalsh wrote

If your argument that Windows will forever have a place in business is due to powershellthen I don't what to tell you.

If you don't know what to tell me, then you don't know anything about Powershell.

Right?

Do you know your tools?

Server 2012 has the same sort of rushed feel about it.  Technologically, Server 2012 is a masterpiece, but in terms of getting the word out effectively about what's new, what's amazing and what's important to learn, the training and documentation material has lagged waayyyy behind the release schedule.  Try searching for an important new feature like Storage Spaces on Bing.  You don't get Microsoft documentation at all..... you just get blog posts and news articles from a full year ago.  This just isn't right.

I believe the techie/tinkerer types among us are going to be pushed out of the Windows arena as MS seemingly, inexorably moves toward the apple model. MS, Apple, and Google will battle over the consumer market while niche needs - and perhaps not so niche - will be increasingly be met by... Open Source? Linux? Time will tell. I wonder too whether any significant user base will follow as some other platform(s) facilitate non-consumer innovation.

What are your needs that aren't possible with Windows 8?

Make a list and share it with us.

I mean, seriously, have you noticed how much you can do from the command-line these days in Windows?  Open up a Powershell prompt (yes, Powershell..... never, ever use cmd.exe again directly -- get out of this habit for the rest of your life) and type.... oh, I don't know, let's say Get-DnsClientCache.  There, one simple command and you've learned what DNS hostnames have been looked up recently on your machine.  Could be very useful in diagnosing problems.

If you like that and want to learn more, open an elevated Powershell prompt, type "Update-Help" and watch as the full helpfiles for all the thousands of console commands get installed on your machine.  (Only basic ones are installed by default with Windows 8)  Then you can type "help dns" and see every command available to you that works with DNS.  or "help smb" for working with SMB file shares. 

You won't find that on Linux.

...... Of course, if your definition of "tinkering" doesn't go beyond wanting it to look pretty, then wait a couple more months for WindowBlinds for Windows 8 to come out and customize to your little heart's content.  Windows has never been very good at offering a wide range of UI customization, so should not be a new concern.

@cheong: I was trying to be funny and don't know anyone with a Windows Phone. I work for a company with hundreds of employees and literally only thee people had one. One of the guys left the company, another ended-up getting a iPhone, and I returned mine after two weeks.

Which makes me wonder, what kind of people are buying these?

There was a big lineup at the Nokia store in Shanghai the other day when the Lumia 920 went on sale for the first time.  They sold out in 2 hours.  That's just one example.... they've been selling very well all over the world.

I've had my Lumia 920 for a month now and it is hands-down the best smartphone I've ever used.  Everyone who tries it out, even folks who have a Galaxy S III, is shocked at how fast IE is.  I will agree that the back/forward situation within IE isn't the greatest (personally I think swiping would work best) but a system-wide back button is a great idea, especially when moving back and forth between a few apps.