85% of Windows 8 users wield the desktop on day one Microsoft has released information about sales of Windows 8 and apps from the Windows Store, plus data on users' interactions with the new operating system. News of Windows 8 sales appeared in a blog post summarising Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller's presentation to Wednesday's Credit Suisse …
"85%, she said, use the vestigial desktop on the first day. In the first three weeks, the average user adds 19 tiles to the Windows 8 start screen. 25% have added 30. 90% of customers use Charms on the first day they get the product."
How are they getting this data? Was there a survey? How big is the sample size?
Or is Windows 8 'phoning home'? Is there an optoin to disable this? Whats the default? What notification is given that it is phoning home?
I think you hit the nail on the head.
The official word on that feature is that it uses your online storage space to save your Win8 settings which will then be retrieved the moment you log onto another Win8 desktop. That will make sure you always get your own desktop. Storage space which conveniently sits outside your common SkyDrive and which, so far, seems totally inaccessible to you.
Something which I consider to be very dubious. I mean; if /my/ data gets stored online why am I not allowed to see what gets stored? Heck; why can't I *remove* my stuff ?
Convenient is it that the moment you want to use their store and all that you'll have to sign in with your Live (now "Microsoft ID"). And all of a sudden all your stuff ends up on some mysterious part of the Internet.
And if only they managed to do a good job here, not even that!
When I started to test Win8 I used a dynamic Naruto Shipuuden theme on the desktop. Quite cool because it really showed how I felt (the picture with Naruto standing behind a fence of barber wire while he cuts his hand holding one of the wires): Imprisoned and incapacitated.
Dynamic... so other pictures are there too.
So; when the Win8 official release hit TechNet I gave that a try too. And amazingly enough; my desktop had the same theme and the same background as when I used the commercial preview. Out of the box. Yet only 1. My dynamic background had now turned static.
And the void? Well, that remained as vague as ever.
I think something really stinks here, and it aren't my feet.
I really hope this is from people who either allow or hasn't turned off (but have been asked about) some version of
"To ensure a great user experience, and to continually improve upon this experience, you can choose to send anonymous data to Microsoft." yata yata yata...
But I'd hardly be surprised if it's on by default, and turning it off is something along the lines of:
- Open Control Panel
- Click User Options
- Click Experience Management
- Slide Management Slider to Custom
- Open Microsoft Feedback Service Center
- Click User Experience Improvement Customizer
- Untick box marked "Really helpful feature that only bad people would turn off"
Of course the above is simply me venting hot air, as I've yet to try Win8 at all.
Take it a sign of my trust in corporations if you like.
"I really hope this is from people who either allow or hasn't turned off (but have been asked about) some version of"
You can see the screen here...click for a bigger image.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-clean-install-part-2_6.htm
#4 would be what your talking about, and I'm not sure what #6 is. Name and account picture?
I expect most people click express.
They also try to make you sign up to a Microsoft account (like hotmail...) even if you are connected to a domain. Some apps like calendar just tell you to logon and try again if you are on a local/domain account. Weather tries to get you to turn on location service but you can just enter a city with a bit of poking. The weather app also has ads (shampoo in my case).
@Tom
Thank you for the wonderful reply - one upped. (I assume the #4 and #6 was directed at me? I really just made up those steps to disable it)
It's seems from this thread alone, that there is a mixed bag type situation.
On one hand they seem up front about it all, and try to respect people.
On the other, signing up = tracking, and possibly in other ways.
Well I shall hold off on it for now.
It actually asks you, very clearly and surprisingly openly, with a series of on/off switches during the installation whether you want to send data to Microsoft. It even breaks the options of different types of data down so you don't end up in any way thinking 'well, I HAVE to say yes just to get this thing to work, don't I?'.
It really is a surprisingly open and straightforward page. It certainly surprised me, and in all likelihood it's because they were so open about it that people probably said yes because they felt they were almost respected.
"How are they getting this data? Was there a survey? How big is the sample size?"
That's made quite clear in the article; "derived from Microsoft's logs." and; "Reller also said Redmond has logged “1.5 billion impressions of customers using the home screen.” and also; "90% of customers use Charms on the first day they get the product."
Notice the repeated use of the words logs and logged. Also 90% of customers, NOT 90% of those whio filled in a survey! So unless they have surveyed 100% of their customers, and got replies from 100%, to derive that 90% figure MS are actually logging everything you do on your copy of Windows 8. Although to be fair probably only those copies that get activated using an MS account, for which you have probably already given permission when you created it. Thats why the other type of account is called "local" because the data stays "local" and doesn't get sent of to redmond for analysis.
I've been using it for a few weeks now, and I never considered this. Anyway, the quick way of doing it simply going to the start screen, and type 'privacy'. Then, open both the Metro and Win32 programs and disable said functionality.
I know Microsoft are trying to get 'it' with the IT crowd of Zuckerberg & co, but did they have to copy their nefarious privacy policies as well?
This post has been deleted by its author
It's gathered via feedback data from the Customer Experience blah blah Feedback option, which is in the same place in the Control Panel as it is in Windows 7 and Vista. It's enabled at install time if you choose "Recommended Settings" when prompted, disabled if you choose to the other (sane) option.
Or is Windows 8 'phoning home'?
And if that's the case,very few of these are going to be corporate bulk licenses, if any. I think we can safely assume that these are unaware home users, who've just picked up a new laptop at PC World or Best Buy.
Well, that and the anecdotal evidence I've just received a replacement company laptop that had Win 7 installed by default.
That's a scary amount of stuff they're tracking, presumably with the improvement program. I'd count this press release as an own goal, instead of making me interested in W8 all they've done is make me think it is spyware. I have no interest in W8 on my desktops but was slightly interested in Surface, that interest just evaporated.
This is one of the key reasons I have not been inclined to jump on the Windows 8 bandwagon, besides the fact that I see little technical benefit to it for non-touchscreen users, and actually several steps backward.
In order to use a many of the new features, you have to create/register an account with Microsoft, one of the key purposes of which is clearly to compile all sorts of data on every person using that OS.
I'll pass, thanks.
Um, sorry. No.
I picked up a Samsun "Smart" PC at the weekend in a store, curious to see if the Surface UI was actually any better on a tablet than on a desktop (my only previous experience) as was widely claimed when excusing it's metaphor jarring impenetrability UX on a desktop form factor PC.
It wasn't.
I even had some fore-knowledge of the gestures that should work, but even so fore-warned and fore-armed, I was not prepared for just how annoying and frustrating the whole thing was.
What a complete omnishambles.
Same here. I messed with a Leveno (thinksmart maybe?) that was windows 8, touch screen and convertible. It felt like I kept entering deeper in to the metro interface and getting stuck so I had to hit the button that took me to the main screen. No amount of poking at the interface would send me one screen back in different places. I've been using 8 on a K & M setup as a desktop for a while now so it's just not that I'm totally new to the interface either. It just doesn't feel like lines of thought on now the touch interface should work in places where allowed to complete, I guess at some point they had to push the product out the door.
Installed Win8 on my laptop yesterday (a clean replacement of Windows 7). I had to use the Search function just to find how to turn off or restart the bloody thing! I've discovered I can't disable the GUI transparency (which I hate, find distracting, and turn off on 7). The boot-up screen (before login) has a stupid picture on it, with no obvious way of changing it. Network connections on the Taskbar no longer have a right-click option for Status (useful for seeing how strong a wifi signal is).
I'm sure I'll find more. I genuinely think Win7 will be going back on soon... honestly Microsoft you really have fucked up here! Radically change the GUI on something no-one used, or something new by all means, but not on a product used by maybe 80% of all the personal computers in the world?!
You can change the crappy picture its just not easy to find its under personalization but only if you go to it through the sidebar not through control panel... sorry I dont have my laptop in front of me to look but I think that is it. Yes its a bad design. Yes the wireless status totally makes me mad. I personally go straight to the desktop, only use the search to launch an app, and have yet to look at a single gadget/app whatever the hell they are calling them. Only thing I "like" about it is that it is faster to start and shutdown than even 7 and seems to be slightly snappier in some ways that 7 on the same machine. I dont plan on going back because I can deal with the annoyances personally but no way would I ever think about recommending it to deploy at work.
yep, transparency is gone... but bizzarely the task bar is still transparent, if a translucent bar, 30 pixels tall is enough to anger you that much, id hate to see what happens if you get a dirty spoon!!
to change the lock screen image... windows key&q type lock screen, lo and behold there are the settings for the lock screen.... rocket science it aint...
I had trouble finding a way to close IE. I could close sessions that I spawned from the toolbar (via "desktop") but the metro IE doesnt seem to die (which was a shame as the session had crashed).
Adding a printer was a nightmare, it decided to query the network pulling back 40 printers in a huge shambles list (with no "description" field which we populate with locations).
As far as living on a domain, it seemed to connect ok. Metro apps dont seem to like our proxy either.
Users are finding it utterly frustrating when using a trackpad. Any sort of slowness when pausing between swipes seems to bring up some sort of helper bars on the top or bottom. Not ideal.
with mouse to close a 'metro' app move cursor to the left top corner, it shows app thumbnail, right click and close...
Metro proxy.... yes, that implementation is a real shambles!! you need to [Netsh winhttp import proxy source=ie] to sync the ie proxy with the system... then it sometimes works or else it will work after a reboot....
I just use the trackpad as a dumb pointer, gestures were more hassle than they are worth...
Took me a while to work out the Metro apps and closing them. On touchscreen I believe you swipe in from the left, but on desktop/laptop either top-left or bottom left corner and move mouse towards centre of screen - pulls out a bar of all running metro apps, right clock and close.
Seems a *very* odd way of doing this.
Yeah, I'm thinking that number is mostly OEM licenses in reserve, or simply new PCs sold with with it. That also doesn't say how many people did the allowable downgrade thing - If I was buying a new PC, I'd certainly put a clean copy of 7 on it.
No way there's any significant enterprise adoption of 8 outside of testing labs. $DAYJOB was using win2000 as late as 2007, and XP is still an allowable desktop configuration, though it takes a LITTLE convincing.
Live pretty much 99.95% on the Win8Pro desktop - iit's where I get my work done. Pinned whatever I need regularly. I can see how the 'Start" part of the ui would be useful on a tablet/touchscreen device.
What I can't fathom is why I would want an app for something a browser has navigated for years now.
;)
The start screen I see for less than a second every reboot (and Win8 is so buggy I've rebooted a lot).
The start screen has indeed acquired a lot of new tiles. Every time I install a desktop app a few more get added to the growing mess... all without my interacting with that screen at all! (Actually, that's a lie, I did take the time to disable every live tile after noticing they were sucking data even though I never use or even have them visible).
I don't know if installing Media Centre counts towards their app count but it wouldn't surprise me if they're bending the stats right now. Hell, with the Media Centre activating Win8 hack maybe they're boosting the Win8 numbers with it as well ;)
So I've had a large number of start screen 'page views', a large number of tiles added and I believe I got to grips with the charmless bar on day 1 because it was unavoidable before Classic Desktop bypassed Metro for me.
I think I even agreed to let Microsoft grab usage stats. Agreed because I knew how much they wouldn't want to see my desktop only usage ;)
What's heartening is 85% making the effort to avoid Metro.
Similar to my experience. I have it so when I reboot it doesn't show lock screen and auto logs me into desktop.
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/09/16/windows-8-how-to-automatically-log-on/
http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-eliminate-the-win8-lock-screen
I don't see the start screen unless some app drags me there. The system looks pretty normal to me now, and has been stable so far. I do like the faster boot times and lower memory usage.
"85%, she said, use the vestigial desktop on the first day. In the first three weeks, the average user adds 19 tiles to the Windows 8 start screen. 25% have added 30. 90% of customers use Charms on the first day they get the product."
I agree with tiles getting added automatically. I remove them though. I think my TIFKAM screen only has 5 tiles on it now. I left the reporting on as well, so they can see I do all I can to avoid TIFKAM.
Can't be arsed booting the Win8 VM up, but I think I might have about six icons left on TIFKAM after removing the "live" crap. I think my first reaction to that jumping, flashing, animated mess was "ARGH, MY EYES".
Do they count people who got a free MSDNAA (oh sorry, Dreamspark) version, gave it a go, then shoved it back in the computer equivalent of a dusty drawer somewhere while they go running right back to 7?
I installed Win8 on my Win7 laptop. I do have problems with some legacy programs and drivers, but I can work around that by using my old WinXP computer. As for the "Metro" start page, I installed a Start button (Win8 StartButton). The laptop now boots to my desktop after a momentary (brief) diversion to the Metro menu. And shutting down is a simple "start button-shut down" operation. Neat.
As ever, when Vole talks about "sales", what it really means is "channel stuffing".
Certainly Vole got its pound of flesh, but that should not be taken as any indication of "popularity", it's merely an indication of the level of stock gathering dust in warehouses. See Dixons, for example, who apparently bet the farm on Vista, and lost.
Which stuffed channel "partner" will be the first victim of TIFKAM®, I wonder?
Oh my my my. How the commentards are out in force today.
But you know what? There's nothing biting here I'm afraid!
Microsoft have SOLD 40 millions Windows 8 licenses. They've not "shipped-40-million-and-we're-waiting-for-OEMs-to-sell-them-all-and-then-pay-us"... it's 40 million licenses IN THE BANK - and they're laughing all the way to it!
"I don't like Windows 8"
"I can't work out how to shut it down"
"I hate Metro blah blah BLAH".
Do you think Microsoft gives a flying f**k if a few Fandriods on this website don't know how to use it?
They're selling licenses at a faster rate than they did with Windows 7! You're predictions of doom are the only "fail" on here - and they're truly epic!
TTFN!
About 27,800,000 results for Windows 8 get start menu back.
Sorry, it's not a few, ahem, "fandroids" that don't like it. As I've already stated around here somewhere, Microsoft could release a great big turd and people would still buy it, because they have to buy it or be unable to run anything.
A new version of Windows selling a shitload is not impressive, sorry. It's as predictable as the sun coming up tomorrow. How many of Microsoft's customers actually want to be Microsoft customers on the other hand? I reckon that ratio is significantly less than 1:1.
Trying to make a fool of people and spin up lies so that those numbers would become a reality then.
There aren't 40million actual Windows8 users out there.
Microsoft just hopes that so many or more will enjoy being ripped off by Christmas time buying their lies for their crap unusable Win8 Metro/ModernUI kindergarten type thing.
I'm looking forward to getting a machine with W8 on it.
I am the sort of mug who actually wants a lappy with a touch screen and W8
(I just hope the bugger runs Chamsy's MagicQ and lets me build a lighting control for the screen)
(Currently running XP and offered a machine with Vista on it)
As someone who's owned an Asus TF101 for a while, and now moved onto a Nexus 7 (TF101 converted to a media center plugged into TV) - I can tell you that even a laptop touchscreen is going to be too big for most gestures.
Gaming will be almost impossible with having the keyboard attached (touchscreen gaming is more suited to hands on left and right edges with thumbs inside), and the TF101 at 10" I'd say was at the limits of comfortable holding (7" is just right). Anyone who's a serious power user is not going to want to keep lifting their arms all day either - just as an experiment for a day, every time there's a button on screen, try lifting your arm to press it and compare to moving the mouse, you'll soon understand.
Ubuntu is starting to go down this route, though not as severely as Windows 8 - I booted up but didn't log in immediately the other day, and came back to the login screen to find some kind of wierd pull-down clock overlay on the screen. It's bloody annoying to have to use a mouse for hand gestures, let alone where a mouse just hasn't even been accommodated in some cases.
I have to admit it, I'm impressed with the bloody-minded determination involved with spinning every statistic into a prophecy of the imminent failure of Windows 8 - it makes for very entertaining reading!
Also I've said it before but the Windows 8 start menu is the best Windows start menu I've ever used. To start with the search feature actually works - I start typing and it finds the setting or program I was looking for faster than I can blink (unlike the Windows 7 one that thought that the My Documents is obviously where it should be looking for "Visual Studio"). I also get to see all the programs I actually use on a single screen, instead of having to click on "All programs", do some scrolling and navigate a folder structure.
Windows 8 is the first OS I've ever successfully used without installing my own launcher replacement (e.g. Executor)
No, it's a bit deeper than that, because the OS fetches advertising in a good handful of Metro applications. I've seen them pre-load even if you never touch them, and I've seen things like Bing use a couple of CPU cycles even though it was never manually invoked.
I'd say there's definitely a lot more potential for tracking here than vista or 7, if that's what they want.
I'll wait for the crackers and hackers to release "Windows 8 Pirate Edition" with all the phone-home and "you must log in to a Microsoft Account in order to do anything" bullshit stripped out, before I even think about touching it. By then those same hackers will have also jailbroken it out of the walled garden and put back all the good stuff that MS has taken out as well like a start button (I notice someone has already done this!), quick launch bar, easily accessible control panel, default to local storage, etc...
One of the few things you can put back without third party hacks is a proper, WIndows XP-style quicklaunch bar that doesn't make quicklaunch apps look like running apps.
Unfiortunately, using the same method for bringing a start menu back doesn't work too well. You end up with an heirarchy of folders that don't fill with program shortcuts as you install stuff. On the other hand, that godawful TIFKAM thing will happily fill up with one, long, flat, confusing list of shit if you let it.
You don't have to send info back to MS
You can install software without an MS account
It's not a walled garden (other than for Metro Apps)
Local storage is default
You don't have to logon using an MS account
If you can't work out how to get to the control panel or local storage, maybe IT isn't for you.
Umm...you don't have to log into a Microsoft account. If you read the screen, there is an option to not do so.
The Start button vs Menu is an argument that's been done to death, so I won't bother. You quickly get used to it if you just take the time to set it up cleanly and properly - about the same amount of time to have a clean and tidy Start button menu.
The Taskbar is perfectly suitable as a Quick Launch bar. In fact, if you pin programs to the task bar it gives you more options, as you can right-click and get a series of very useful options as well. The old quick launch bar has been absolutely superceded.
The control panel is immediately accessible VERY quickly by typing 'c o n' into the home screen. It appears quickly at the top of the list. The lack of being able to get to it is like the mythos of it being hard to shut down. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Power Button, Shut Down.
The default is local storage - that's a myth as well, no idea where you made that one up from.
It's also not a walled garden. I can install all the software I could install on XP, or especially Windows 7, without any qualms or locked down behaviour.
It's strange. I don't particularly like the new Start screen - so much so that I've set up Desktop as the first and main tile that I click on without thinking when I start my PC up, and my Desktop has been set up with my programs neatly arranged on the taskbar as I want them, so I rarely - if ever - need to go to the Start screen. I don't even particularly want to defend Windows 8....it's just that when I see such excessive degrees of bullsh*t as I've seen here I just want to step in and clarify things.
The Start button vs Menu is an argument that's been done to death, so I won't bother. You quickly get used to it if you just take the time to set it up cleanly and properly - about the same amount of time to have a clean and tidy Start button menu.
You mean you have to reorganise and rearrange TIFKAM, every single damned time you install something. That's something I haven't had to do with the rather more sensibly heirarchical start menu yet. Really, it's worse than trying to use an Android phone by wandering through the App Drawer trying to look for stuff.
The Taskbar is perfectly suitable as a Quick Launch bar
In your opinion. In my opinion - and in the opinion of others - it's a confusing kludge that makes it not immediately obvious what programs are running or not.
The old quick launch bar has been absolutely superceded.
Evidently not.
In fact, if you pin programs to the task bar it gives you more options, as you can right-click and get a series of very useful options as well.
You can do that without pinning anything.
The control panel is immediately accessible VERY quickly by typing 'c o n' into the home screen
You mean like Windows 7? Come on, where's the advantages of TIFKAM again?
The lack of being able to get to it is like the mythos of it being hard to shut down. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Power Button, Shut Down.
You can shut Windows 7 down using the Vulcan Nerve Pinch as well. Come on, show me a real TIFKAM advantage.
It's strange. I don't particularly like the new Start screen
Well at least we agree on something.
Now all Microsoft need to do is get rid of it, or sideline it at least. Or maybe, possibly, just let those of us who don't want an Xbox, have our desktops back.
Oh, I won't argue the point that the Start screen can indeed make a bloody mess - I even posted about it somewhere else in this thread. I do, though, see some potential for it, but in it's current iteration it really isn't all that good. Having said that - I always avoided the Start menu as much as I could as well, because it was always made into such a bloody mess by all these companies who thought they knew better on how the Start menu folder system should be designed. If you actually try to tell me that the Start Menu didn't turn into a debacle after installing a good few programs then I call shenanigans on you. The one practical difference between Windows 7 and 8 now for me is that with Windows 8 I actually have a clean desktop - but that's more because I'm better behaved with where I save my stuff.
Why is the taskbar so confusing? I always get a very strong whiff of 'I don't like new!' when people gripe that they want their quick launch bar back. It's so unnecessary. Where is the advantage? Yes, I admit that if your eyes are so bad you can't see when a program is running then it may be a pain, but then there is also the magnifier accessory for someone with that level of eye condition.
Very true that I don't have to pin programs to the task bar to right-click them! Thank you for pointing that out....was there a point or were you just arguing for arguments sake? I think the latter. Still, you just made the point that it's even easier to use than I said it was.
But what is actually wrong with being able to type 'c o n' into the start screen? It's different, and I've already said it's not my favourite aspect, but it doesn't actually make things any more difficult, does it? So why complain? I could tell you why, but it would just be repeating myself.
Why are you obsessed with the (rather pettily named TIFKAM - I mean, come on, it's like referring to Microsoft as M$ - it's just bloody juvenile) advantages? It doesn't actually make things any more difficult than they were before, but the whole platform works better.
Regardless, you're still perfectly capable of installing and sticking with Windows 7, or even XP, or if you really want you can go back to 2000, 98SE, or even 95, or 3.11 (before that they weren't worth mentioning). If that's what you want to install, then install one of those. You don't HAVE to install Windows 8, and there is plenty of life in Windows 7 (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/products/lifecycle) so if you don't like 8, don't install it.
Personally, I think the Start screen needs a lot of work to make it usable, but then I actually see it once in a blue moon, since I immediately run the Desktop and everything I have is set up from there. However, I LOVE the fact that those of us with an XBox and/or Windows Phone 8 device are getting interoperability and a common shared storage and platform. If you don't want an XBox, then don't buy one, and stick with Windows 7 if that's what you prefer. Just please quit trying to tell us all how bad Windows 8 is when it really isn't all that bad. It loads (very) quickly, it runs everything I've thrown at it, it syncs up my data across my 3 devices (4 counting the spare XBox), and the parts of it I don't like are actually quite easily avoidable.
I upgraded my pc from windows 8 to windows 7 this last weekend.
It's not that I hate windows 8.
It's that all my applications are "desktop" applications, and they are a little less easy to get at and use with the new user interface. And the new stuff doesn't seem to have any real attaction to me.
So overall windows 7 runs my stuff better than windows 8. So I upgraded back to it :)
I recently purchased a new lap top - so I got win8, so I'm one of the stats, I guess, despite repartitioning almost immediately, installing Ubuntu, and not using win8 since.
Getting an OS free laptp is possible but often more expensive as you can't get it via the major resellers who can undercut the smaller ones, so MS win whatever the consumer actually wants.
The reality is probably more that 80% of people scooted their mouse into the right corners of the screen and some weird garbage popped up over there, then they tried to get rid of it. 10% used 8 before, and are OK with it. The remaining 10% is made up of people who have used a program to disable hot corners entirely, or are confused as all hell.
'85%, she said, use the vestigial desktop on the first day.' - and believe me, they probably kept on using it, and trying to keep it in the foreground.
'In the first three weeks, the average user adds 19 tiles to the Windows 8 start screen. 25% have added 30.' - well, that's because every piece of software you install puts at least 3 or 4 tiles into the bloody thing. Rather than being sensible and folder-ising each program install, Windows 8 allows any installation program to put it's entire list of what would have been icons, like 'Readme', 'Uninstall', 'Visit us on the web', onto the main Start window. My Start window has become a setup of 3 set up columns of stuff I want, then off to the side are a hundred other tiles I just can't be bothered to get rid of, since I can't mass remove them and still remain confident that I'll be able to find them again - especially in the case of more specialised Uninstall programs.
' 90% of customers use Charms on the first day they get the product.' - and most likely 85%+ don't want to use it again - except that's the only way they figure out how to shut the PC down. The other 10% probably didn't figure on moving the mouse to the bottom-right corner to look for superfluous and unneeded extras.
'Reller also said Redmond has logged “1.5 billion impressions of customers using the home screen.”' - hey, Microsoft, people don't have a choice of using the bloody 'home screen'. It's not like the Start menu in previous versions where you click on it to go somewhere. It's the home screen - it's where EVERYTHING comes from.
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