Windows 8 And Video Surveillance: Embrace, Avoid Or Ignore?

JH
John Honovich
Dec 30, 2012
IPVM
With almost all VMS software running on Windows, Microsoft's moves impact the surveillance industry. With Windows 8 now available for a few months and the default option on most new PCs, key questions emerge: What benefits does Windows 8 offer for surveillance? Should you be moving to it? With many sources reporting poor adoption of Windows 8 and strong debates about the value of Window's 8 new features, this makes the choice even more challenging. In this discussion, let's share experience and perspective on Windows 8 for surveillance. Are you moving to Windows 8? If yes, why? If not, why not?
JH
John Honovich
Dec 31, 2012
IPVM
I am not sure how big a difference the 'under the hood' improvements to Windows 8 are for video surveillance but there are a number of them. See: Under the hood of Windows 8, or why desktop users should upgrade from Windows 7 - ExtremeTech and Better on the inside: under the hood of Windows 8 | Ars Technica
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Ethan Ace
Jan 02, 2013
I've had the Windows 8 preview installed on my Macbook for months and spent a total of maybe an hour with it. I guess I should poke at it a little more.
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Christopher Freeman
Jan 25, 2013

Avoid untill all of the bugs are worked out .

Will be great when the technology catches up .

But as an integrator who is used to making the old , legacy products work and integration of the two .

Let the market catch up 1st . or sell more upgraded products & interfaces to make life easyier .

If you have all new , its a great new product . Touch , Technology s , Fast , Smart , Up to Date .

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Ethan Ace
Jan 25, 2013

As an addendum to my previous comments, I did spend some time with the Windows 8 preview I had installed in Parallels on my Macbook. I like it. It took a minute to get used to the start screen, instead of the start button, but other than that, I thought it worked perfectly fine. I did all of the work for one report on it, including creating the images, Exacq exports, etc., and subjectively speaking, without any performance tests, I thought it worked better than Windows 7 on the same machine.

Note that this is not a recommendation to use it on live systems. I don't think I'd do that yet, but I'm less fearful of it than I had been.

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Luis Carmona
Jan 25, 2013
Geutebruck USA • IPVMU Certified

Win 2000 was the bug fix to WinNT. Win XP was what Win2000 should have been in the first place.

Ultimately the producers of the products we use and sell will determine what operating system can be used and what shouldn't. If VMS X doesn't support Win 8, we shouldn't use it. During this transition period integratros/dealers need to be careful spec'ing systems and advising customers what will be supported and not supported.

I'm with Carl on this one, my preferance would be to wait on the next version, or if they release a major service pack that "fixes" the interface issue, which is the biggest thing, for desktop/non-touch-screen computers. Some people may not have a problem with the interface on a desktop, but the great majority of what I'm seeing, and based on my own tinkering, is the interface is a major failure for non-touchscreens. (I haven't tried it on a touchscreen yet, but in looking at it I still don't see how it would be a lot better with all the previosuly forward functions now buried in the background.) And as an additional side, I think Steve Ballmer's days at MS are numbered.

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Ethan Ace
Jan 25, 2013

I agree that using a mouse with the applications meant for touchscreen is terrible. But there really are not many of them. And even IE can be run in a windowed mode and work exactly like typical IE 9. I guess I just didn't see the same issues others did, but I do think I went into it trying to find things to hate!

JH
John Honovich
Jan 25, 2013
IPVM

How easy is it to get Windows 7 pre-loaded from OEMs/PC manufacturers?

Are there any VMSes that specifically will not support Windows 8 currently?

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Luis Carmona
Jan 25, 2013
Geutebruck USA • IPVMU Certified

Usually soon after a new version, from Dell they offered the old and new version of Windows. I don't know if they'll keep doing that.

Sometimes Microsoft permits a downgrade of the license key, meaning if you give them a valid license key for a current product, they'll give you a license key to install an older version (like for Windows or Office), but they usally only do that for the retail version of the OS, not OEM version.

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Marty Major
Mar 08, 2013
Teledyne FLIR

I just came across this report showing adoption rates of Windows 8 after 4 months - and it doesn't look good. It appears to show that only consumers are buying 8 (and even they are hardly buying) - enterprise has rejected it. And with Win7 also not gaining significant market share (stunning that 7 did gain some even after it was discontinued), this seems to show an increasing trend of corporate/enterprise repurposing existing equipment.

I'd be interested in getting readers' takes on how this trend could impact our industry. Repurposing existing hardware can be a big headache for both integrators and manufacturers alike as newer features and improvements in operability generally correlate to increasingly higher system requirements.

Will this lack of adoption of Win8 in the corporate/enterprise space slow innovation in the physec space? Is Moore's Law history? :)

JH
John Honovich
Mar 08, 2013
IPVM

"Will this lack of adoption of Win8 in the corporate/enterprise space slow innovation in the physec space? Is Moore's Law history? :)"

Does Windows OS, have any role, positive or negative, on innovation in any space? To your greater point, I guess you are getting at that the average age of PCs will increase. We will see a 'graying' of PCs deployed, like the baby boomers reaching retirement age.

It's certainly an interesting shift but most PCs from the last few years are already good enough for most surveillance purposes and new stuff will certainly continue to be bought for servers. Agree? Disagree?

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Sean Nelson
Mar 08, 2013
Nelly's Security

If you dont have a touch screen then dont waste your time with Windows 8 because it completely sucks butt for mouse controlled computers. Its designed for a touch screen, its great for that.

But if you are a hard-core point and click guy, stick with Windows 7. I bought a laptop for one of my salesman with Windows 8 recently, not a touchscreen, I almost ended up taking it back. I dont see any real performance upgrades at all.

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Ethan Ace
Mar 08, 2013

See, I disagree with that. It took me a bit to get used to it, but basically, instead of a start button, there's now a start PAGE, which is where all the live tiles are, etc, but also a just plain list of programs, like the start menu. Programs that aren't designed for touchscreen still run on a desktop. Even IE can be simply run on the desktop in a window. I know an IT guy running Windows 8 with mouse, keyboard, and two giant monitors, and he loves it.

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Sean Nelson
Mar 08, 2013
Nelly's Security

The Issue I have is, we always switch over to the desktop, we never use the live tiles, there is no point unless you just want to look at something pretty. In my opinion, that is lame unless you have a touch screen. If you end up always switching over to the desktop, then what was the point of getting Windows 8? You have to use the darn arrow keys or the scroll bar just to navigate the live tile screen anyways. I dont see any other advantages other than the live tile screen, and thats really not much of an advantage with a mouse. Plus we have had multiple programs crash on windows 8 as well. And I got a decent computer. I have read similar reports as well. Hopefully updates will solve those issues though. I would be all over this software if I had a touch screen though.

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Marty Major
Mar 08, 2013
Teledyne FLIR

To me, the most stunning reality exposed by this report is the fact that 5% of people are still using Vista!

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Ethan Ace
Apr 29, 2013

Time to revive a dead topic, because I just remembered something I intended to point out.

At ISC West, a lot of vendors were running Windows 8 on their demo machines. I'm guessing not for recording, but for clients, at least, I think Windows 8 was very common. More than I expected. I asked a couple if they'd run into any issues and no one had.

Granted this was a very informal survey, but the number of people running 8 seems to outweigh the number of people vehemently opposed.

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