HONG KONG, Sep 26, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Forumswindows8.com, the largest Windows 8 help and support forum on the Internet, recently polled Windows 8 users on their feelings regarding Microsoft's flagship product. Over 50,000 users have voted in the poll which covered questions ranging from thoughts on Windows 8's Metro UI to what they feel is the operating system's biggest weakness.

This survey hopes to find what features users like the most and in what areas Microsoft should make improvements. As many know, Windows 8 features fast boot-up and shut down processes. According to the poll, 56% of users chose this feature as their favorite. For those who dislike Windows 8, the price is an important reason. Users can upgrade to Windows 8 at only $39.99, but without promotional pricing the cost rises to $199.99. 35% of the users believe that this price is too high. Meanwhile, the new metro UI does not seem popular among users. Only 22% users chose this feature as their favorite.

Most Liked Features of Windows 8

Fast boot and shut down-----------------------------------------------------56%
Easy installation----------------------------------------------------------------50%
Internet Explorer 10 -----------------------------------------------------------35%
Restart/Restore capabilities-------------------------------------------------28%
More apps, such as Mail, Calendar and People apps --------------------26%
Windows Explorer--------------------------------------------------------------25%
Windows Defender------------------------------------------------------------24%
App store------------------------------------------------------------------------23%
Metro UI--------------------------------------------------------------------------22%
Snap Multi-tasking--------------------------------------------------------------21%
Multiple Monitor Support -----------------------------------------------------21%
SkyDrive--------------------------------------------------------------------------19%
Charms Bar-----------------------------------------------------------------------13%
Other------------------------------------------------------------------------------10%

Weaknesses to be Improved

Price------------------------------------------------------------------------------35%
System requirements---------------------------------------------------------26%
Incompatibility -----------------------------------------------------------------25%
Windows always freezes or crashes----------------------------------------20%
Two styles- Metro and classic desktop------------------------------------18%
Uncompleted Apps------------------------------------------------------------18%
No option of reboot/shutdown/sleep-------------------------------------17%
Other-----------------------------------------------------------------------------12%

Although Windows 8 Beta has been released with great expectations, unfortunately, it seems that users are not as enthusiastic about Windows 8 as Microsoft had hoped. According to the survey, the most popular Windows system is still Windows 7 (53%), with only 25% users voting Windows 8 as their favorite. However, Windows 8 Surface received more positive votes than Android tablets and the iPad. 35% of users expressed that they would choose Windows 8 Surface for their tablet needs. Windows 8 Surface may indicate that Microsoft is finally entering the computer hardware market and putting themselves in direct competition with their manufacturing partners. How this will affect their relationships with manufacturers remains to be seen.

About www.forumswindows8.com

www.forumswindows8.com is the biggest Windows 8 help and support forum, which provides help and a variety of Windows 8 tutorial articles that will help you get the most out of Microsoft Windows. It features the metro UI like Windows 8’ metro start screen and is the first Windows 8’s support forum which has metro style. Any questions about Windows 8, visit www.forumswindows8.com.

Contact:
Windows 8 Forums
Marisa Garfield (+86) 028 85265676
Email: contact@forumswindows8.com

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Very interesting information, lots of details also. Under "Weaknesses to be Improved", $40 is fantastic for an upgrade, for those who wants to walk away from their prior OS & not look back.

For those who wishes to dual boot, or install 8 Pro to a 2nd HDD, this is where things gets sticky. With less than 30 days to go, MS ought to have these prices available for us. I've read of a third version, for those with no OS whatsoever, this is expected to be higher. But for those of us who wishes to dual boot or run within a VM, we shouldn't have to be penalized because we wish to further test Windows 8 Pro. I would not make it my default OS for the utmost items of importance (such as accounting), before SP1 is issued. This was the same way I handled Windows 7, until SP1 was released, XP Pro SP3 was my OS for these things.

And 8 Enterprise really wasn't a decent testing ground, perhaps for commercial/home office use, but not a typical home user. Though it was very functional, it was unattractive. Windows 7 (Home Premium, Pro & Ultimate) gives a full 30 day test drive, prior to mandatory activation of the OS. The same should apply to 8 & 8 Pro.

It's just not right to give $15 & $40 upgrades for those who doesn't want to run their old OS anymore, yet charge $100+ for those who wishes to dual boot. In time, these may become 100% Windows 8 users. However for very high pricing, many dual booters will shy away, this is MS driving off potential customers for the new OS. I felt that the $69.99 offer for this was reasonable, but haven't read anymore of it, except an article as to what happened to the offer.

But to give up what we have (especially Windows 7 users) for the unknown for $40? I have no issue with those who wishes to do this, but not all of us feels the same.

No wonder Pricing tops the list of issues.

Cat

How are they going to do that? has MS found a way to identify the machine itself, and only allow one win7 or one win8 license(product key) to be used, and offer the cheap version only as an upgrade not a clean install? ARGH! If any of these is "no they haven't not yet" then there could be multiple win7, some upgraded to win8 some not, etc...

I think Hypervisor and ISO mount are exceptionally useful features in win8, don't seem to see any survey data that shows many in agreement. lol

johnwerneken, yes MS has a way to know, modern computers has a SLP (master COA) key in the BIOS. Even if nothing but a bare drive was in the PC, & one was making the purchase running a Linux Live CD, that could be determined. Google "SLP Key" for more info.

But the user will have the option to do a clean install, however one must create a DVD, or use the USB DVD Tool to create a bootable Flash drive, & do the format from that. This is a key step in the clean install with the $15 or $40 option.

Hyper-V is a useful feature, but not the user friendly one that MS touted it to be. For home users, VirtualBox & VMWare Player (both free, from File Hippo), is far more suitable for creating & deploying VM's.

Cat

TY Cat. VM vs HyperV is I think a taste issue. Existing win8 can mount the upgrade as a ISO I assume, or maybe Ubuntu can, or as you note I can buy a darn piece of plastic and burn my own iso/dVD. Thanks for the key reference, I am not surprised, but my experience has suggested that it is the partition which they can identify not the computer, at least with re-installing expired trials where the limiter is not a real world calendar date. I had also thought that the one-license-per-user thing would probably be enforced in such a fashion; I have lots of separately running licensed copies of various things, where I have them on one computer have one license and numerous drives/partitions. Af course it's still one computer in this case...

I believe you, it's just a slightly different question. The thing I am concerned about is doing BOTH a clean install and an upgrade on the same machine, then I can tell whether the upgrade install risks or the clean install time to reinstall who know what, is worse. I'd like to run both indefinitely, I don't want all the win7 crap on win8 all the time, but some of the time I would, that's why I want it both ways.

I see now that yes they could make me decide first, in which case I'd probably buy two upgrades use two systems. From their past practice I did not think they would make me do it that way, seems unnecessary and useless all around; one can't run two os on the same box at the same time not really; even with VM one is doing input or output with only one at a time, regardless of the other ways in which one still has multiple OS available.

Thanks again for the info.

I also have numerous copies of Windows & Office, around 13 now, on 4 different HDD's (one mounted at a time). That's what my desktop has become, a testing PC, I'm a former TechNet Pro member, while they were generous with the keys. That's one reason, other than the fact that 8 RP won't install/run right when it does, in ACHI mode. It has to be installed in IDE mode, then for the most part, it runs OK.

That's HP for you. Fortunately, that wasn't the case with my notebook (that will run Hyper-V), the install was a breeze. This is the one, in my specs listed below, that I want to dual boot Win 8 Pro & 7 Pro on. Not really dual boot, I want to install a 90GB SSD where my optical drive is now, & run 8 Pro from there. The other SSD, where my OEM install of 7 Pro is, along with a Recovery & Data partition, is about 65% full, a good safe manageable level for a SSD.

Being that Windows 8 will not require the drive space that 7 does, at least for some time, 90GB will be plenty, I'll allocate 55GB for the OS install, adding the extra 350MB in for the System Partition, & give the rest to Data. Then after the install, align the partitions, update, install my apps & security, backup & be done with it.

It may be in time, that I can learn Hyper-V, but I'm waiting to see what pricing will be for those who wishes to dual boot. There's going to be the current promo (the $15 & $40 one), one for those who wishes to dual boot or run in a VM, & the most expensive, one for those with no OS, only instead of OEM, they're calling it a System Builder version. I'm looking for the special pricing, the $69.99 option that Brandon LeBlanc (from MS) told us in the Windows Blog, for the one that can dual boot, separate HDD, or run in a VM. If it doesn't happen, I'm calling him out on the blog as a liar. We've been told this & that about 8 pricing, look at the chart above, that's the major weakness to be addressed. Obviously, this isn't coming from those who are paying $15 or $40 for the OS, it's coming from others.

The reason that MS is doing this (System Builder), is that they know that those who build their computers are buying much cheaper OEM versions of Windows 7 (& XP), & going that route. Legally, they're supposed to sell that computer. But, you probably know the ropes as well as I, most are keeping it. I've also noticed that Windows 7 OEM prices are inching up, this would be playing in line with the $200 System Builder of Win 8 Pro.

Cat

nice, interesting info