Ken Springer wrote, On 12/3/2013 7:04 PM:

Would you and xfile put some dates on those percentage numbers? Without
a timeframe, the percentages become meaningless.

I've not played with 8.x hardly at all. And, at first hated the
Metro/Modern/Whatever UI. Then I read somewhere it was basically the
Start Menu displayed differently. So I started looking, and then it
wasn't that bad, although there is/was a bunch of crap I'm not
interested in. I wonder if things would have worked out a bit different
if MS had simply said that. :-)


Hi Ken,
xfile provided a link for the ~30% XP market share

The below 40% market penetration was last Dec 2012. The 43 % the
prior quarter.

Google or Bing should yield a variety of hits for XP Market share when
searching in the Dec 2012 and Sept 2012 timeframe.

My point was that a double digit drop is significant and XP (as
end-of-life for product and security approaches in April 2014) will
continue to see further declines.


Correct, the 8x UI has a lot of unnecessary 'apps' that most will never
use many of which provide a Metro UI type representation (modern UI IE
mode) of the same articles found on MSFT's media (MSN) site (News,
Sports, Weather, Maps, yada...)
- even with all the extras, its just a simple select, rt click to
unpin the item from the Modern UI Start Screen.

Also of note, even the Modern UI Start Screen (which scrolls
horizontally) the installed Desktop apps can be automatically positioned
to appear first (left side). Likewise, if desired, one can configure it
for Modern UI apps to appear first. If one chooses to have a mixture
then 8.1 provides more grouping and options for rearrangement on the
modern UI than 8.0.

My personal approach is to configure the Modern UI with those
applications (desktop) and the few apps (Modern UI) that I use most
frequently in one group, a second group with application/apps that I use
but not as often as the first group, and a third and final group with
Windows and application software utilities.

I supplement the Desktop mode by using both the Quick Launch toolbar and
the Windows Taskbar (the latter because it allows me to pin items to an
application and/or use Jump Lists).

With that approach, no matter where I am I'm just a small step away of
doing anything I've previously done for years on Windows 7.

What has also worked out better for me, is Win8 and Win7 networking
(sharing, printing, wifi) and sharing (music, photos) is much more
effective than Win7-XP or even Win7-Win7 ever was.

8.x may take some time to achieve the same comfort level but imo it is
not as 'evil' and disconnected as many make or percieve it to be.


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps