I doubt there'll be a Windows 9 (as anything other than a patched Win8 at least). MS have made it clear that they've eaten up this 'desktop is dead' bullshit and as a result the desktop is not important to them. They're trying to transform into a services company as IBM did (and to their mind mobile is somehow part of that). Long-time partners are getting the daggers out as MS becomes a competitor.

Even if MS wanted to make a good desktop OS, I don't think it'd be feasible for them economically. The tech that's currently in windows 7/8 is ancient* (particularly the kernel and filesystem but also the driver model, security model, linked library model etc etc.), it's been patched and patched to keep it just-about-competitive but I Think we're seeing the limits of that. They'd really have to re-engineer from scratch to compete for another generation and... I don't think it's worth the cost when the desktop isn't particularly lucrative for them any more.

(* A quick 'feature' comparison with my Linux setup without wanting to sound all Linux-evangelisty:

• Filesystems: NTFS is just fucking old, creaky, slow and shit. Btrfs absolutely flies in comparison and does stuff that's light years beyond NTFS's capabilities.
• General performance stuff: Windows 7 takes ~35 seconds to boot on my machine. It takes a further 10-15 seconds before the desktop actually responds to interaction. Launching Firefox for the first time takes another 10 seconds. Linux boots to a fully hardware accelerated desktop in ~11 seconds. At which point it's responsive. FF then takes ~2 seconds to start for the first time. (none of this matters in itself, of course. I boot my PC once a day. It's just an indication).
• Linux has full virtualisation support built into the kernel. I can run my Linux desktop as a hypervisor and (assuming I have Vt-x and Vt-d) run Windows (or anything else) on top, fully virtualised (good for gaming).
• I can run software in a Docker, I can chroot and completely isolate the rest of my system. I Can run a wireless mesh network (again, built into the kernel). I can backup the entire system in about 100 (anything from a built-in Btrfs snapshot to a disk image to rsync to just a list of everything that's installed and all changed config files) different ways without noticing anything is happening and I can transfer that backup to pretty much any type of filesystem, local or remote, mounted locally with virtually no effort. I can do all this over ssh from my tablet if I want to.
• I don't have to download any fucking drivers fucking ever.
• I can update the whole system (OS and software) with a single command (or button press, if you're that way inclined) without having to reboot ever. Updates tend to take seconds rather than fucking forever as on Windows. And consist of feature and security updates rather than DRM. And I don't have to reboot ever during this process, except to use a new kernel, if I choose to.
• And now I can even play games, thanks to Gabe (cheer)

That's obviously not an exhaustive list. Just stuff I can think of off the top of my head in my just-woke-up state. It would take MS like a decade to match half of those features.)

This is nearly true. But definitely a million times better than Windows.

I've got hardware (maybe just one item) that needs drivers downloading (and annoyingly recompiling on kernel upgrade (so I don't kernel upgrade often on that system)). But the great thing is, the manufacturer has made drivers which work ok but some members of the community don't like them so they've made better drivers themselves!

The benefit of the Linux driver system (or the proof that Windows is shit for this) showed itself a few weeks ago when I found an old Video to USB adapter in a box of stuff. It wasn't mine, no idea how it got here but I wanted to use it. Plugged it into a Windows 7 system, couldn't find any drivers automatically. Searched all over the place based on USB ids, generic equivalents etc and came to the conclusion that support stopped at XP.

Plugged it into a Linux system and there it was /dev/video0

The great thing generally is, even if the driver was made mainline many many years ago, it'll still be there. As far as I'm aware "support" (actually being able to use the hardware) doesn't generally stop. There's going to be some exceptions but I know I'm much more confident these days of plugging something into a Linux system and it working right away. If it doesn't then dmesg usually gives you enough information to figure something out.

I agree with a lot of that, although I'll point out that having an SSD can improve things imeasurably. On my laptop (2.6GHz Core i5, 6GB RAM, 128GB Corsair SSD), Windows 7 (once past the BIOS screen) boots in 16 seconds to the login screen, 3 seconds to the desktop (where it's usable), and Firefox starts in 2 seconds.  I agree though that Windows performance on an HDD is fairly poor.

The biggy for me will be seeing how MS competes in the long term here. I know they're going down the services route a lot more (pushing the MS store and whatnot), but Microsoft also have to accept that one of their biggest strengths and most profitable areas is enterprise.

Many of them do not like Windows 8 and have stuck with Windows 7. That's not a problem for one version, however if MS continues to push Windows in a consumer direction rather than a production direction, I reckon more and more businesses will slowly but surely take a good long look at Linux and consider it as a more suitable OS for a work environment than a Windows screen full of shite flashing tiles. That is something MS can't afford to happen.

In which case, I can see one of two things happening. One is Microsoft grudgingly giving in to some degree and placing a better emphasis on improving the desktop and providing more choice. The second might be Microsoft actually forking Windows, keeping the same kernel etc, but creating a separate and fully business oriented version of Windows. It'll be interesting to see, but top businesses do not want an OS which is geared towards touch and flashy consumer "apps".

This I agree with - I've come to really like Win 8 as a desktop OS, but I'm dreading my first enterprise rollout. I've been playing with it in a VM, and I'm really struggling to see if the difficulty in locking it down is worth the reward.

This may sound a bit simplistic but do Microsoft not provide some sort of resource/help/guide to assist with things like this? Transitioning between their major products/revisions.

Or is it left to people like you and that's the reason the job you do is valued?

There are Microsoft articles but they vary greatly in quality and usefulness. Also, a lot of them address very specific issues meaning you need to know exactly what you're trying to fix to find them. Plus, I work a lot in education which requires a high level of control compared to most businesses.

So, yeah mostly the second but I don't want to over play it. Its just experience over time and attacking issues as they come up - most can be sorted with a quick Google, but once we've done (collectively) 3 or 4 installs, we have a good cache of knowledge going forward and can provide a really solid install from day one. Plus, don't underestimate the comfort blanket of having a help desk number you can call when the boss is breathing down your neck!

Sure, but a SSD will improve Linux boot speeds too so then it's 16 seconds versus 5.

(Read a thing recently where someone made the quickest-booting linux they possibly could. Booted in 0.02 seconds :') (couldn't actually do much with it since they'd stripped pretty much everything out :Y ))

Enterprise is profitable for MS, aye, but selling Windows to enterprise isn't really (since they have to sell it very cheap and it's rarely updated). It's Azure, Exchange and Office where they make their enterprise money. Azure is becoming the focus of their efforts and Office/email will be a web based service.

I think MS are fine with Linux becoming the desktop OS for enterprise. So long as it's being virtualised on Azure.

W3rd.

I've not encountered anything that needs drivers for years. But then I don't use anything at all exotic so that's not surprising.

You can't go saying "immeasurably" and then go and measure it, man. That's just not on.

Make them make After Effects/Illustrator/Photoshop linux Xen, pleeeeeeease. I could ditch Windows and OSX then.

I forgot to post here but I have recently made OSX surprise even me, a grumpy Mac user, with how fucking stupid it can be.

I've always wondered why Adobe doesn't release on linux (after all, Autodesk did with Maya). Maybe one day they will.

Hah, they're moving towards being web services too, aren't they?

(I actually literally use Gimp these days :| I can't bring myself to use Inkscape though so I run Illustrator through Wine. (Inkscape is powerful and all that, but the UI is fucking dreadful))

(It's extremely weak for video editing stuff though, aye. There's some stuff in the works but nothing good enough to replace AE or Premier yet)

Because 2% of desktop market share -_-

Maya makes more sense because big studios obviously want to use Linux for their render farms so moving the whole chain to Linux is less of a step (and has more obvious benefits).

SteamOS (and the shitness of Win8/direction of MS) might eventually bump that 2% up to something respectable though.

I can't really even use alternatives anyway, they'd have to be absolutely 100% compatible and whatnot :(

They have a rendering engine Mental Ray (which also renders 3DSM & Softimage) as a separate product. Plus many studios have their own, custom engines.

Apple has proven with Aperture and Final Cut that adobe does not have a lock on the market -- all the more reason for adobe to move out of the walled garden.

You put up with GIMP but complain that Inkscape's UI is bad? wtf man :D

(I have limited needs to Acorn is fine for me on the Mac, and I ... don't mind the Inkscape UI at all, although I've never used Illustrator so I guess I don't know what I'm missing out on)

Final Cut seems to have taken a bit of a beating lately, professionally speaking at least. While becoming more accessible to the home user. I've used it a bit a few years ago but didn't really get on with the interface. Motion and Livetype were kinda fun timesavers.

Regardless, it don't much matter - everyone I work with uses Illustrator/Photoshop/After Effects and assorted related plugins. It's bad enough when Adobe updates a version, never mind trying to mix up semi-compatible alternatives.

At least my Office needs are generic enough that I don't need a 'proper' version of that.

Oh and
...ah man, Linux  :') 

Clearly got to be Butter Face.