Holy Cow - Windows 8. OMG

[Chiropteran]

What's the point in a full screen app launcher if all its got on there is a web browser and a way to run a decent OS?

Whats the point of not using the full screen? If I want to launch an app I open it and click on the app. If I don't I don't. Whether it covers the bottom left corner of the screen or the entire desktop is not really a big deal, because it's only open for half a second anyway.

My lack of apps is because this is my work computer, and I do most of my work in a web browser or over RDP. But If I added more apps, the start screen simply gets better and shows even more advantages. The Windows 7 start menu can only show the 10 most recent (or pinned) applications, after that you are painfully and slowly navigating the menu. My start screen has room for over 100 large tile-icons without scroll, and this is even with a crappy 1680X1050 screen. I'd much rather have a larger selection of instantly available programs rather than navigate menus.

The advantages to being full screen is larger icons (easier muscle memory), more icons, icons in the middle of the screen so I don't have to move the mouse around as much.

 

[WelshBloke]

Whats the point of not using the full screen? If I want to launch an app I open it and click on the app. If I don't I don't. Whether it covers the bottom left corner of the screen or the entire desktop is not really a big deal, because it's only open for half a second anyway...

Or you could just stick some links on your taskbar and never have to leave the desktop in the first place.

 

[Chiropteran]

Or you could just stick some links on your taskbar and never have to leave the desktop in the first place.

Yes, in which case Windows 8 and 7 perform the same. I am not saying Windows 8 is a huge step forward, but it's not nearly as bad as some people try to make it sound.

 

[Maximilian]

Whats the point of not using the full screen? If I want to launch an app I open it and click on the app. If I don't I don't. Whether it covers the bottom left corner of the screen or the entire desktop is not really a big deal, because it's only open for half a second anyway.

My lack of apps is because this is my work computer, and I do most of my work in a web browser or over RDP. But If I added more apps, the start screen simply gets better and shows even more advantages. The Windows 7 start menu can only show the 10 most recent (or pinned) applications, after that you are painfully and slowly navigating the menu. My start screen has room for over 100 large tile-icons without scroll, and this is even with a crappy 1680X1050 screen. I'd much rather have a larger selection of instantly available programs rather than navigate menus.

The advantages to being full screen is larger icons (easier muscle memory), more icons, icons in the middle of the screen so I don't have to move the mouse around as much.

Why metro sucks has been covered about a thousand times already by a thousand different people so ill just quickly illustrate this:

My start menu
Zero organisation by me, i haven't modified it manually since i installed windows all this stuff here appeared automatically

My start menu initial view
Couple of apps that are used but not enough to warrant a taskbar pin, i did this manually

My metro start screen
What a fucking mess... seriously? This is better somehow? I mean just look at it! It yeah... it looks like 90's AOL, or the yahoo homepage, ugh!

My metro all apps page
Same thing as the start screen, a complete and utter shambles, it takes up more space and is more of a mess than the start menu. How is this crap better??

So in short we've gone from a reasonably organized setup that is efficient with space to a bloated mess in which organization was a complete afterthought. Im all for change when its for the better, i embraced windows XP's start menu refinements as opposed to the old 98/95 start menu that was far less efficient with space, i warmed up to the superbar when i realized its basically a more efficient way of doing the quicklaunch thing. Metro though? No this crap is worse in every conceivable way, it perplexes me to think there's people out there who embrace this on a desktop, few as they may be i really wonder what they were doing previously with their computers to have metro be an improvement...

 

[Ketchup]

All Microsoft had to do was give you an option to switch to the "old" layout. Microsoft OS's pretty much always had that option up until 8. Even 7 let you have an XP virtual machine for free. Where are those options on 8? It is a much larger leap in terms of UI, in which Microsoft offered a "you have to take it" attitude.

 

[sourceninja]

So I want something kinda strange.

I want to get rid of the fullscreen start menu (put it in a window like start8 does), but I don't want a start button (just use win key with no silly icon taking up space on my taskbars)

any options?

 

[Mem]

I've my old desktop UI in Win8 clean and more or less same as my ex-Win7 without the old style start menu.

My Metro start screen(miles better then the boring default one).

Yes I'm happy with this ,just like I'm happy with all my different Linux Distros.

 

[Berryracer]

I've my old desktop UI in Win8 clean and more or less same as my ex-Win7 without the old style start menu.

My Metro start screen(miles better then the boring default one).

Yes I'm happy with this ,just like I'm happy with all my different Linux Distro's.

can you pleaes share your badass wallpapers in a zipped file via some upload host site please? i like em and my wallpapers are getting boring

thanks

 

[Ketchup]

can you pleaes share your badass wallpapers in a zipped file via some upload host site please? i like em and my wallpapers are getting boring

thanks

https://www.google.com/search?q=mas...SBbLJ0AHz74HYBA&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1484&bih=776

 

[Scooby Doo]

Why metro sucks has been covered about a thousand times already by a thousand different people so ill just quickly illustrate this:

My start menu
Zero organisation by me, i haven't modified it manually since i installed windows all this stuff here appeared automatically
http://i.imgur.com/0SK8t5Q.png

My start menu initial view
Couple of apps that are used but not enough to warrant a taskbar pin, i did this manually
http://i.imgur.com/F4pq3QM.png

My metro start screen
What a fucking mess... seriously? This is better somehow? I mean just look at it! It yeah... it looks like 90's AOL, or the yahoo homepage, ugh!
http://i.imgur.com/cClPmx5.png

My metro all apps page
Same thing as the start screen, a complete and utter shambles, it takes up more space and is more of a mess than the start menu. How is this crap better??
http://i.imgur.com/kijTUvb.png

So in short we've gone from a reasonably organized setup that is efficient with space to a bloated mess in which organization was a complete afterthought. Im all for change when its for the better, i embraced windows XP's start menu refinements as opposed to the old 98/95 start menu that was far less efficient with space, i warmed up to the superbar when i realized its basically a more efficient way of doing the quicklaunch thing. Metro though? No this crap is worse in every conceivable way, it perplexes me to think there's people out there who embrace this on a desktop, few as they may be i really wonder what they were doing previously with their computers to have metro be an improvement...

This goes back to my wish... if you could easily configure the start menu why the heck would you want the start screen? There's utilities (like 7zip, Reflect...etc) that only get used once in a great while. Just stuff them into a folder "Utilities". I don't have to see them when I just want to play a game or visa versa. With start screen EVERYTHING is in one huge freaking folder. Sure you can move stuff around in groups but it's still all there! Note, i'm not talking about pinning to the menu bar, that's for the most used apps.

What do you mean, scroll through?

You can pretty much customize the start screen any way you want. Yeah it has a lot of dumb metro garbage by default, but that takes whole seconds to fix. It's not a big deal. I keep my start screen limited to only the programs I run most often, and never need to scroll.

Hell, even 7 suffers from that problem. Start menu on a fresh windows 7 install: Getting Started, Connect to a Projector, Sticky Notes, Snipping Tool, XPS Viewer, Windows Fax, Magnifier all wasting valuable menu space. Just like 8, it only takes a few seconds to fix, but if you are going to act like it's a big deal on windows 8 at least realize Windows 7 has the exact same "issue".

If that's all you have why have a full screen when you could just pin them?

 

[Tom]

Whats the point of not using the full screen? If I want to launch an app I open it and click on the app. If I don't I don't. Whether it covers the bottom left corner of the screen or the entire desktop is not really a big deal, because it's only open for half a second anyway.

My lack of apps is because this is my work computer, and I do most of my work in a web browser or over RDP. But If I added more apps, the start screen simply gets better and shows even more advantages. The Windows 7 start menu can only show the 10 most recent (or pinned) applications, after that you are painfully and slowly navigating the menu. My start screen has room for over 100 large tile-icons without scroll, and this is even with a crappy 1680X1050 screen. I'd much rather have a larger selection of instantly available programs rather than navigate menus.

The advantages to being full screen is larger icons (easier muscle memory), more icons, icons in the middle of the screen so I don't have to move the mouse around as much.

I can open any app I want, as well as do about 1000 other tasks, from the Start menu, without closing the window where I'm typing this in IE9.

 

[Tom]

I've my old desktop UI in Win8 clean and more or less same as my ex-Win7 without the old style start menu.

My Metro start screen(miles better then the boring default one).

Yes I'm happy with this ,just like I'm happy with all my different Linux Distro's.

How do you know what the weather's like ?

 

[Mem]

How do you know what the weather's like ?

Default Metro weather tile,

On old Desktop UI with
Firefox (my main browser).

 

[Mem]

Why metro sucks has been covered about a thousand times already by a thousand different people so ill just quickly illustrate this:

My start menu
Zero organisation by me, i haven't modified it manually since i installed windows all this stuff here appeared automatically

My start menu initial view
Couple of apps that are used but not enough to warrant a taskbar pin, i did this manually

My metro start screen
What a fucking mess... seriously? This is better somehow? I mean just look at it! It yeah... it looks like 90's AOL, or the yahoo homepage, ugh!

My metro all apps page
Same thing as the start screen, a complete and utter shambles, it takes up more space and is more of a mess than the start menu. How is this crap better??

So in short we've gone from a reasonably organized setup that is efficient with space to a bloated mess in which organization was a complete afterthought. Im all for change when its for the better, i embraced windows XP's start menu refinements as opposed to the old 98/95 start menu that was far less efficient with space, i warmed up to the superbar when i realized its basically a more efficient way of doing the quicklaunch thing. Metro though? No this crap is worse in every conceivable way, it perplexes me to think there's people out there who embrace this on a desktop, few as they may be i really wonder what they were doing previously with their computers to have metro be an improvement...

To be fair you could organise your Metro tiles a lot better,ie move games tiles to their own columns,make some new columns for other stuff and name them,put a gap between different columns as well,remove tiles you don't need and last with respect that horrible orange desktop colour could be improved that's for sure.

I'll also try to put mine A to Z as well(tile wise for each column)all these things do help.

I'll say Metro is not bad once you spend time customising and organising your tiles/columns etc and putting stuff you use on old desktop taskbar ie Chrome/Firefox for example.
Lastly OblyTile is pretty good if you want better looking Metro tiles for free,you can even use your own icons you find from the web.

Maximilian I think I would have fun organising those columns/tiles of yours if that was my PC,would not be hard ,bit of time maybe but worth it in the end .
They could give us the user more customisation options in Metro(I hope that is the case for 8.1/Blue).

it perplexes me to think there's people out there who embrace this on a desktop, few as they may be i really wonder what they were doing previously with their computers to have metro be an improvement...

I'll try and answer this,IMHO it's not really worst just different and different way of doing things.

I've embraced many things and changes over the last two decades from DOS to Windows and even Linux,I'm kind of neutral on Metro and to me its just another tool a different new way of doing things in Win8,in a way kind of glad the old start button menu has gone since it has been around for what 18 years so was long overdue to go sooner or later, some people argue it's very good or perfect however does not mean they can't change it or try to have users doing things differently to accomodate modern hardware like tablets etc,you can argue the old start button menu is crap for touch users and great for PC desktop users both are valid.


Problem I think is Microsoft trying to design a modern start menu that covers all hardware from PCs to phones to tablets,they will get it right eventually but for this to happen there has to be changes to the old ways of doing things like you do from Win95 to Win7 etc...

They are trying to think of something new/modern rather then going and relying on the old ways,reminds me of a few Linux distro's that don't have a start menu as such and also other Linux distros that do change.
Smart people will argue give us an option to have both,I think Microsoft want people to change and adapt to their way of doing things regardless(one way for all if you like regardless of hardware), right or wrong that's what I think.

 

[WelshBloke]

... Problem I think is Microsoft trying to design a modern start menu that covers all hardware from PCs to phones to tablets,they will get it right eventually...

If they try to use the same UI on PCs, phones and tablets then I don't think they ever will get it right. They are all very different devices with very different usage patterns. My phone doesn't replace my PC, it compliments it.
If Microsoft had done it right they would have leveraged their PC market share by making WP8 an extension of their desktop experience not trying to clone the experience across platforms.

They could have done so much with using the power of the PC remotely on the phone.

 

[WildW]

I've lived with Windows 8 for six months now. I found that I rarely used anything modern-interface, and when I had a play with it I quickly thought it was poor and closed it again. Except for Minesweeper, I quite liked that.

I just reinstalled Windows 7 and I find myself falling in love with my PC all over again. Not in a weird way, just the normal way.

I honestly think the Start Menu is the difference. Maybe my monitor is too big but I'm glad I don't have to look around the whole screen to find the program I'm looking for any more. In Windows 8 it was a case of I know I pinned Steam in here somewhere but it's surrounded by too many other colourful icons, many of which are animating.

 

[Mem]

I've lived with Windows 8 for six months now. I found that I rarely used anything modern-interface, and when I had a play with it I quickly thought it was poor and closed it again. Except for Minesweeper, I quite liked that.

I just reinstalled Windows 7 and I find myself falling in love with my PC all over again. Not in a weird way, just the normal way.

I honestly think the Start Menu is the difference. Maybe my monitor is too big but I'm glad I don't have to look around the whole screen to find the program I'm looking for any more. In Windows 8 it was a case of I know I pinned Steam in here somewhere but it's surrounded by too many other colourful icons, many of which are animating.

I've to disagree, the old Start menu does not make a big difference IMHO,quite a few operating systems on both Windows and Linux does not have one(look at history and present on both Windows and Linux),I could also say the Metro Start screen is the new Start menu as such and I would be right more or less ,as to Steam that's easy to customise and you do have too many options in that department for example short cut on old desktop or taskbar,have it load with Windows automatically or click on the Steam tile in Metro.

Quick note on Metro tiles,make it work for you ie organise them and rename them,remove ones you don't use,make new columns one for games now is Steam hard to find in games column?....Put them in A to Z order or at least try too,its really not hard to find anything in Metro if you can spend time organising them to your needs,make it work for you and not the other way around.


Personally I find Win8 boring now ,reason being I have got use to it quickly even without a start button menu and have it customised perfectly(just like I've all my Windows and Linux distro's) for my needs,being very stable and no issues is icing on the cake,I look forward to Win9 and also some new Linux distros new to play with.

 

[Maximilian]

I've lived with Windows 8 for six months now. I found that I rarely used anything modern-interface, and when I had a play with it I quickly thought it was poor and closed it again. Except for Minesweeper, I quite liked that.

I just reinstalled Windows 7 and I find myself falling in love with my PC all over again. Not in a weird way, just the normal way.

I honestly think the Start Menu is the difference. Maybe my monitor is too big but I'm glad I don't have to look around the whole screen to find the program I'm looking for any more. In Windows 8 it was a case of I know I pinned Steam in here somewhere but it's surrounded by too many other colourful icons, many of which are animating.

Yup, unfortunately windows 7 didn't like my x79 rig, start8's start meny turned what would have been a turd worse than vista (windows 8) into something usable.

 

[WildW]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to win or anything, just saying what I thought.

There really is so little difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 that it does just come down to which start menu or screen you prefer. Though I will miss the speed graph when copying files.

 

[Mem]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to win or anything, just saying what I thought.

There really is so little difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 that it does just come down to which start menu or screen you prefer. Though I will miss the speed graph when copying files.

You are entitled to your opinion so nothing wrong in that and no need to apoligize,I will say I thought Vista SP1 to Win7 was very minor upgrade,ie only offered less UAC nagging and slight speed increase,at least Win8 IMHO offered a lot more over Win7 then what 7 did over Vista and redesign in UI as well.

 

[bshole]

Mem,

I am at work right now on a Windows 7 machine. I have exactly 12 applications open and pinned to my task bar. A code editor, a version manager, a cmd prompt, 2 word documents, 2 protocol analyzers, a pdf document, an excel file, email, internet explorer and a calculator. It is an extremely productive setup. I am able to manage my work with the greatest of easy. I can always see EVERYTHING and go instantly there using the taskbar. I am constantly jumping (and moving data) betweens apps and files when writing software.

Assuming MS gets its way and makes METRO mandatory, how do you do this in the METRO interface?

 

[Gunbuster]

Assuming MS gets its way and makes METRO mandatory, how do you do this in the METRO interface?

Tinfoil hat much?

Microsoft has to my knowledge NEVER stated that the modern interface style was going to replace the desktop portion of the OS for content creators. Metro is simply a design pattern that is used for the start menu and apps submitted to the MS app store and works alongside the desktop.

P.S. everything you mentioned (apps pinned to the task bar) works exactly the same way in windows 8

 

[Mem]

Mem,

I am at work right now on a Windows 7 machine. I have exactly 12 applications open and pinned to my task bar. A code editor, a version manager, a cmd prompt, 2 word documents, 2 protocol analyzers, a pdf document, an excel file, email, internet explorer and a calculator. It is an extremely productive setup. I am able to manage my work with the greatest of easy. I can always see EVERYTHING and go instantly there using the taskbar. I am constantly jumping (and moving data) betweens apps and files when writing software.

Assuming MS gets its way and makes METRO mandatory, how do you do this in the METRO interface?

Just do the same thing with Win8 on the old desktop UI taskbar ie pin your important stuff and make shortcuts on desktop etc,you can even add programs to Win+X menu if you want(I have added paint,notepad,shutdown,reboot,Windows update, Windows media player) to name a few,takes me less then a second to right click in left corner to access Win+X menu in either Metro or old desktop Ui.

For the most part you can avoid Metro if you organise the old desktop with the programs you use etc...

Obviously in Metro you could make your own column or two for work stuff like top 10 or 15 tiles of important stuff you use daily,it's a preference thing when it comes to customisation.
These are worth a read,http://www.itproportal.com/2013/02/05/tips-on-organising-windows-8-tiles/ ,http://robti.me/windows-8-create-and-label-groups-to-organize-the-metro-start-screen/ .Remember a lot of Metro tiles you can pin to the old desktop UI taskbar ,like this

I don't think they will phase out the old desktop UI completely,I think they are still experimenting with their first hybrid OS ,obviously they will be making changes and improvements down the road(Metro wise) with Win9,10 etc so nothing is black or white so to speak.

 

[Chiropteran]

I can open any app I want, as well as do about 1000 other tasks, from the Start menu, without closing the window where I'm typing this in IE9.

Have you actually used Windows 8? Opening the start screen doesn't close any windows.

It works *almost* the same as the start menu, except it requires fewer mouse clicks in most cases in my experience. It's also more convenient because my mouse pointer tends to be near the center of my screen already when I am browsing the web or whatever, so there is less mouse cursor movement needed.

 

[bshole]

Tinfoil hat much?

Microsoft has to my knowledge NEVER stated that the modern interface style was going to replace the desktop portion of the OS for content creators. Metro is simply a design pattern that is used for the start menu and apps submitted to the MS app store and works alongside the desktop.

I always thought Windows 8 was for preparing users for the permanent transition to Metro. MS doesn't intend on going to Metro and killing the desktop eventually?

Why did MS bother pissing off a sizeable portion of their user base with a "feature" that the user cannot turn off and works completely differently than the desktop? It doesn't seem rational from a business standpoint. Who wants two UIs on the same device?