Microsoft quietly announced that it officially ceased sales of Windows 7. This is the first time I am actually sad to see a previous version of Windows come to an end. Windows 7 has been my favorite incarnation of the popular OS to date. I have called it "Vista, done right". With Windows 7, Microsoft solved a number of nagging problems from earlier versions, including performance, security, usability, and so on.
Originally, I was anxious to know what Windows 8 would bring. But not anymore. Windows 8 is a huge regression, in my humble opinion. I have been using Windows 8, side-by-side with Windows 7 on various machines. I still stand by my assessment that Windows 8 is a usability disaster; a schizophrenic OS that does a poor job as a tablet interface and as a desktop interface, and forces users to switch between vastly different UIs to accomplish tasks on the same platform. It's just dreadful.
I write software for a living, so I feel that I have some knowledge of which I speak. I'm sorry to see Win7 die, and I hope Microsoft can see fit to give Windows 8 some much needed treatment for its schizophrenia.
