A large Windows 8 support forum has done a survey and asked more than 50,000 people about their opinion on Microsoft's latest and upcoming OS. The forum is visited by many early adopters, users who like to try out new things. In this case this means people who were able to get Windows 8 before it's official release (October 26th 2012) such as those who downloaded the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, MSDN, Technet and Dreamspark subscribers and, likely, also pirates who obtained a Windows 8 RTM copy.
The results aren't surprising and pretty much match what people are stating in our Windows 8 forum too. While users like the easy installation, fast boot and shutdown of Windows 8, they aren't too happy about the Charms Bar and the Metro GUI in general. However most users are annoyed with the pricing of Windows 8. It's the biggest thing to change, according to the forum users, about 35% of them say that Microsoft should lower it. During the release time Windows 8 can be obtained for $39.99, but that's a promotional price, it is expected that afterwards the price will be much steeper.
The annoyance with the pricing scheme could be due to the fact that most users are not used to paying separately for an operating system. Most computer users get the operating system with their computer, tablet or phone where the OS is pre-installed by the hardware vendor. It's probably disappointing for Microsoft that less than 25% of the users like Metro, Skydrive and the new Windows 8 App store.
Even worse for Microsoft is that 53% of the users prefer Windows 7 and even 25% prefers Windows XP over Windows 8. Interested in more? Get all the numbers here.
