Windows 8

Ever since I saw the early information about the Lenovo Yoga convertible laptop/tablet coupled with information about Windows 8 I have been excited. This is what I've been waiting for.

In the range of computing devices there was a gap. From the desktop computer, to the fine portable laptops, the little inexpensive netbooks, the tablets, and the smartphone a couple of things stood out to me.

First, the tablets certainly have been popular and for good reason. With them you can do quite a bit including quickly viewing the weather, sports, news, Facebook, forums, shop various brick-and-mortar stores or on-line stores, read and send eamil, and more. But the tablets lack two things.

First they don't come with a physical keyboard. I'm a touch typist so I'm really frustrated by my one finger typing on my iPod Touch. I want a physical keyboard. Oh sure you can buy a Bluetooth keyboard and pair it with most of the tablets, but it would be true that most of the time you wouldn't have the keyboard handy. Also even if it was handy you'd have to set up the tablet somewhere to view it while you used both hands on the keyboard.

Second tablets are primarily media devices. You can't accomplish much with them even if you attach a keyboard. They don't run the most popular software in the world with is Microsoft Office with it's widely used MS Word, powerful MS Excel, and presentation software MS PowerPoint. Further you can't run any of the millions of Windows software packages such as Adobe Photoshop, or industrial software such as C++ programming languages, or machine controllers.

So a tablet has widespread but limited use. I wanted both. I did not purchase a tablet and it is unlikely I ever will. But a convertible laptop, one that has an attached keyboard but can convert into a tablet, well that is right down my alley.

I can see how Microsoft came to develop Windows 8. I would have done something quite similar. Microsoft had no presence in the tablet world but that may not have been the biggest problem. The tablet world was causing PC sales to slip. Something had to be done.

Microsoft couldn't abandon their PC customers, and there is a lot to be said for touch screen tablets. Hey, how about a software and hardware system that could do both? Right. Now how to do it.

First keep all the functionality of Windows 7, really Microsoft's best Windows system ever, perhaps the only really good one. Second add touch screen. Would touch screen be useful on a desktop, perhaps not but if it could be used with a keyboard and mouse who cares. Second strive to have one OS, or the appearance of one OS, that runs on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Third come up with something new that would attract people away from iOS and Android; a new cool touch screen interface will do it. Fourth sell Windows 8 really cheap, at least until it catches on. If it is sold cheap enough it will help get it kick-started. Then see if you can get the world's PC and tablet manufacturers to have a flood of new hardware available on day one of the Windows 8 introduction. Oh and test the heck out of it so it will come out of the shoot with minimal bugs; after all the new interface is going to be a big step and confusing, we don't need bugs too. That should do it.

So I was ready on October 26, 2012 at 12:01am to download Windows 8 and put it on my desktop. I just wanted to show my support, and to try it out. I also want to keep up with the latest thing. My plan was to dual boot it so I could still have Windows 7, and switch over to play with and learn Windows 8. When ready I'd upgrade my Windows 7. But this didn't happen.

I partitioned a drive on my 750GB hard drive to load Windows 8. Immediately I ran into a problem. If I was going to load Windows 8 on the new partition I would need to have Windows 7, or Vista, or XP there to start with. But all I have is restore disks that won't load on any partition. My other choice would be to buy the full version of Windows 8 to install on that partition. A full version is 3 to 4 times the cost of the upgrade version. I do have a full version of XP I could load but it doesn't have any of the drivers for my desktop. So I'm stuck. Either I do the upgrade or not. Apparently there is no way to download Windows 8 to a DVD and load it later.

Frankly I have no need to load Windows 8 on my desktop. I don't have a touch screen and I think it would be largely a waste to buy a touch screen for a desktop. Also I really like Windows 7 and I think the features of Windows 8 aren't all that useful for me. I still have the iPod Touch so I have access to thousands of apps and have loaded all I want already.

What I really would want is one of the new convertible laptop/tablets running Windows 8. I can't justify that expense. The iPod Touch and the desktop suit me just fine.

I wonder how many other people will go through the same set of thoughts and realizations as I have. It makes me wonder how quickly Windows 8 will be adopted.

I see the Apple iPad Mini came out and sold out in a few hours. But I haven't seen any suggestion that Windows 8 or Windows 8 devices are selling like hotcakes.