Diagnosing Windows Stuck in a reboot loop

Sanat Gersappa · Subscribe · Top Commenter · St. Thomas High School
Too early to call, since you haven't used Windows 8 yet.

Tevin Lopezz · Top Commenter · Jogging
i guess someone forgot to tell him windows 8 can run on ARM processors, will have its own application store, will potentially have xbox live/xbox 360 integration in some sort of way, and have the best user interface.

Sudharsan Raman · Subscribe
There is no tablet market now... There is just an iPad market where iPad rules and wannabe iPads fighting for the left-overs. Microsoft wants to redefine the market.. For once, they are clearly thinking different and that's good. There is a huge market for full-blown tablets..far better than some glorified one app at a time launchers..

Jason Keicher · NJIT
Samsung Galaxy > IPad
Reply · 1 · Like · July 13 at 9:20pm

Dushyant Bing · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Surat, Gujarat
iPad >> Everything

Tod Rowles · Castle Rock, Colorado
Agreed. While the content consumer tablets like iPad are fun and entertaining, I much prefer a "full-blown" tablet for work. As a matter of fact, I am commenting on this thread via an Asus EP121 Windows 7 tablet which goes everywhere with me. Not only am I able to remote into my work desktop while out and about, I am able to produce actual work with this machine. It's brilliant.


Kyle Elmblade
I worked at UPS several years ago. During my tenure there, RPS & FedEx had started as less than a bug on the windshield. Through creative marketing and customer centric approaches, they suddenly started eating into market share. At the time UPS was one of the largest private employers in the world with over 335k employees. They were huge, strong, and international. Nothing could touch them. They weren't about to change their ways for anyone. And that most certainly included giving out any kind of discount for their services. Even employees always paid full price.

Then one day the president of the company opens his books and sees red ink. 80 years in business and that had never happened before. Even then it took a full three years and a significant amount of "secret deals" with accompanying NDAs before they unvieled their Groundsaver program. They claimed they were the tightest ship in the shipping business, but it took a long time and a huge chunk of ice to get them to change course.

We are seeing the same thing with Microsoft. UPS was in no danger of going out of business. Neither is Microsoft. But I think they're going to have to start seeing some red ink before they're willing to listen to the outcry of the average consumer. Until then, they are right and nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can tell them different.

Tevin Lopezz · Top Commenter · Jogging
This is not the 60's. ms has 80,000 employees. They have researchers, scientists, engineers, and tons of market researchers to analyze what will work and what wont. So tell me, what makes you think you know more than thousands of scientists and market researchers at microsoft?

Kyle Elmblade
I never said I "know more" than anyone, let alone the market researchers at Microsoft. The issue is that Microsoft is entrenched in corporate thinking. They are so strong and have done things their way for so long that the mindset is "we know everything". I don't care how many "market researchers" you employ (and please, researchers, scientists, and engineers are irrelevant to this discussion - they work on what management directs them to work on), they are going to be influenced by the corporate mindset. Marketers want to please their management just like any other employee. In the end this is going to affect how the research is represented, if not the research itself.

Just the fact that we are having this discussion in the first place is ample evidence that Microsoft is doing some things that don't make sense to us. I got inv...See More

Neil Ellis
What makes you think he doesn’t? A thousand blind people can’t see better than a sighted person. Or a thousand sighted people following a blind man off a cliff (think Balmer here). Numbers of people believing something have never made something true or we’d have a flat earth by now.

Adron Hall · Subscribe · Sr. Application Developer at Russell Investments
This seems soooo much like a failing idea. Enterprise does NOT lead consumers, and Microsoft doesn't seem to get that. Even though they keep building consumer devices as if they're building them for the Enterprise, and then not actually selling them to the Enterprise, and by the same note, not to the consumers either. (i.e. WinPho7)

Whoever is leading product + marketing at Microsoft needs to pull their head out of their @$$ and pay attention to the world instead of insular Microsoft thinking. It has been a notorious problem, and it apparently continues.

Steve Peer
With Microsoft, it's ALL about the OS. Every product and service ties back to Windows at some point. It's an obsession that will not die any time soon, regardless of the market response.

Brett Radler · Top Commenter · Founder at 86Serving.com
...hence why there market share price hasnt changed for roughly a decade!

Tevin Lopezz · Top Commenter · Jogging
adron, if you seen the UI of windows 8, you would notice "enterprise" is nowhere in site in terms of priority. its all about your friends and things you are interested in.

Steve Sinchak · Marquette
I don't see how Windows at the core is a problem, the GUI should be specific to the use of the device. It sounds like that is what Windows 8 is all about. Prior versions failed because the top level GUI was not device specific. You mention Apple but I think you forget that the iPhone and iPad are powered by OS X at the core. While they publicly call it iOS, when Apple introduced the first iPhone they claimed it was powered by the core of OS X. In a way you could also say Apple is stuck on the OS X treadmill. And that clearly is not a bad thing. I think that goes to show that the core OS is not the problem, it is the top level GUI.

Robert Kegel · Top Commenter · Valencia, California
I agree that I think Microsoft is doing it right with Windows 8. Windows 8 looks very friendly and they're making a UI which is similar to WP7 which is also what they're doing with the Xbox 360 dashboard. The thing is they have bringt out WP7 tablets until Windows 8 comes out. Without a finger friendly tablet on the market, its hurting Microsoft. Also if they have both Windows 8 and WP7 tablets out at the same time, it can only help. Some people may not want full blown Windows on their tablet, maybe they just want something ultra simple....also WP7 tablets can be made cheaper because for companies to license WP7 (I believe) is cheaper than full blown Windows. Also WP7 tablets can be made my cell phone manufacturers and Windows 8 tablets can be made by PC manufacturers. Another thing is later on with WP8, there is a rumor that is going to run Windows 8 but with a lot of stuff stripped out. So if this is true they'll merge anyway. Microsoft should have been thinking of the right now instead of 5-6 months from now.

Michael Braude · Subscribe · BU
The argument is that MSFT should rush to put WP7 on a slate because that would be the fastest to market, because consumers "won't wait", is silly.

History repeatedly shows that the first one to market is rarely the one that's successful long term. It takes a lot of guts to stand back, survey the market, and make large, informed investments that have a high probability of success. This is exactly what MSFT is doing, and I think Win8 will be a huge success because of it.

If you don't agree, take a good look at the Playbook, the Touchpad and even the current lot of Android slates. None of these devices are selling very well, if at all, because they were all rushed.

It's a fallacy to think that if you enter the market a year or two after the first entrant that you can't be competitive. Rarely does a two year head start create an impenetrable economic moat. Many consumers will wait until there's a slate that works for them, and the ones that don't will switch if something better comes along.

Stephen Fusiana · -
Erm what about ipad. It was the first real consumer tableT and it's lead is almost insurpassable

Mike DeSilver · Subscribe · Technical Solutions Professional at Microsoft
you actually believe it's insurpassable? Didn't the same people say this about the iPhone?

Stephen Fusiana · -
its different with the iphone. Its a product with a premium price point and being a phone its a commodity. Everyone has a phone and many upgrade every 18 months. Android phones are given away for free on cheap contracts which is not the case with iphone, thats why its gaining market share. Competitors to the ipad are clumsy and generally the same price. Price point is the key armour in Androids (phone) crown. It does not have the same advantage in the tablet arena.


Mitch Koulouris · Subscribe · San Francisco, California
The albatross around Microsoft's neck is Windows. It's the center of the universe for Redmond and is both a blessing and a curse. MSFT is an also ran on phones and tablets as well as non-existent in entertainment. Hard to believe since some of the smartest, brightest people I know work there. I can't believe they are having their lunch handed to them by Apple and Google (who have captured the minds and imaginations of consumers).

Prashant Sridharan · Subscribe · Marketing Manager at Corensic
Couldn't agree more. Their effort is high. Their results are poor, and their philosophy around tablets is a losing one, meaning their results may be poor for quite sometime. This decision to position tablets as a full-fledged PC may be the turning point in the demise of the company's consumer ambitions. Welcome to the new IBM.

Mitch Koulouris · Subscribe · San Francisco, California
Couldn't have said it better myself. It's funny because it seems so obvious. Hard to believe MSFT is so bound by these shackles. It's not only killing them slowly, it's stifling creativity, ambition, and technological breakthroughs.
Reply · Like · July 13 at 7:55pm
Mike Eggers (signed in using Hotmail)
Such a curse to have a product that sells 400 million copies like Windows 7. This idea that Microsoft is somehow getting crushed by Apple and Google because everybody is blogging about them is just pure fallacy. iPads have not even made an appreciable dent in windows market share. There is no reason Microsoft can't pull of a well designed and well thought out version of windows that works on tablets.


Bart Willeman
Even though I am kinda sad as well not to see the Windows Phone concept on a tablet, I think Microsoft is taking the right approach. If the experience on a tablet, is going to be the same as on a desktop/laptop, than that can only be a good thing.
The example of Windows 7 on a tablet, is a wrong comparison to Windows 8. Especially since Windows 7 was never a touch-centric operating system. Athough I don't think MS likes me to use that word for Win8 either ;).
Anyway, lets wait and see. If Win8 on a tablet is half as good as Windows Phone 7, we got ourselves an iPad competitor!

Thomas Lock · Top Commenter · Ryerson
Is this article a joke? iOS is for the most part OSX, so as others have already stated I guess Apple is stuck on the OSX treadmill, I bet you never developed anything in your life to think that you could just dump an entire OS core oh wait that is what Apple did when they took FreeBSD (i guess they just gave up on trying to build an OS) as their core.
Microsoft for once in many many years is really trying to think outside the window and creating new concepts and UX. I am down with not letting Microsoft just coast through things but when they try to do new things we need to support them. MS is not going away anytime soon, they have so much money just collecting dust it's time the sleeping giant woke up and did something for the consumer rather than just Enterprise.

Rodrigo Ratan · Subscribe
May be if Windows 8 runs Windows Phone Apps as its just Silverlight apps then you would have the best of both worlds :)

Ted Pavlic · Subscribe · Columbus, Ohio
A few months ago, I had a sit-down conversation with someone who had worked on the WinPho team. The conversation wasn't about WinPho, but when I found out that he came from that team, I asked him if we'd see a WinPho version for a tablet. His answer, almost verbatim was, "Microsoft's official stance is that tablets are a Windows device" (or something like that, maybe he said "tablets are PC's", but he definitely used a phrase like "official stance"). So this must be a deliberate internal talking point that's been on the books for a while. Apparently it's not about the interface (touch) but about the size, for some reason, which determines which product you use.

I guess they don't want to spare extra manpower for doing PC, phone, and tablet development. They'd rather just keep it to PC and phone... and perhaps they think that will make their phone software better because it gets focused attention. But it seems like if they've already admitted that some platforms are totally inappropriate for Windows, then why this strange stubborn stance about tablets being PC's?

Srikanth Vasireddy · Subscribe · QUALCOMM
That's a big assumption you are making there, that Windows 8 can not perform as good as WP7 is doing on phones today. I cannot wait to see you proven wrong.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · July 13 at 7:51pm

Nabraj NT · Top Commenter
There is not any tablet market now. There is Ipad and Android tablets which are just a oversized phone! Microsoft wants to redefine the tablet with Windows 8.

Jason Keicher · NJIT
Completely agree. I put away my netbook and tried to use my galaxy tab as my "Main PC", and while very cool, there were some very glaring problems. Still waiting for my chromebook, and I will try the same thing.

Emmet Gibney · Top Commenter · Works at CareNetwork
You couldn't be any further off the mark. Tablets are not PCs, but they're not phones either. To say there is no tablet market is also inaccurate and the millions upon millions of iPads which will be sold proves the point.

You should not make a tablet that fulfills the needs of a PC user. If I wanted a portable PC I would get a laptop. If Microsoft makes a "tablet" software like their previous tablets then they're making novelties. If you want to achieve mass market appeal the software interface has to work with the device. Windows was made for PCs that have a mouse and a keyboard. Tablets are made for fingers as the input device.

I think Microsoft understands what they need to do to make inroads into mobile and the tablet markets, and I highly doubt whatever they do will end up looking like Windows 7. Microsoft isn't going to redefine tablets with Windows 8. Perhaps they will redefine Windows, but not tablets. iPad has proven their model works for tablets, and most tablets from here on out will be some sort of iteration of that model. I believe that eventually tablets will outsell PCs, and in reality to say "tablets" is probably an inaccurate way of describing these devices as they are essentially just devices that require no additional interface peripherals (ie mouse, keyboard), the tablet form factor or mobile phone form factor are just the most obvious options.

Mike Sanchez · Jersey City, New Jersey
If Microsoft doesn't get Windows on a tablet right with Windows 8 then it needs to get WP7 on one... but I am liking what I am seeing so far.

Denis Lynch · Murry Bergtraum High School
Whether or not it becomes the popular choice in tablets, I agree with MS on this one. When a device's screen exceeds 7 to 10 inches, it should have the functionality of a PC.

I deal with the limitations of a phone OS, because you have the trade off of using a device that is the size of a phone. When you need to be seated or lying down to use something comfortably, it should work as well as a laptop IMO.

Thomas Hofmann
I believe this has all to do with revenue. Just think how much money Microsoft makes from selling Windows phone licenses. Now look at how much money they make from the Windows / Office combo.

Windows is their bread and butter product. By shifting attention from Windows PCs / Tablets to Winddows Phone tablets they would essentially destroy their own revenue stream. From a purely business point of view that wouldn't be very smart.

That said, I am amazed that a company with that much cash and brain power has so incapable of punching out hit product after hit product. I can only assume that there is a serious problem in the senior leadership (top 500 managers) within the company preventing people further down the hierarchy to deliver their best.

Nick Fleker Felker ·
Windows 8 will be coming soon enough.