The task manager is preposterous.
It shows much more information and is FAR more useful, once you flip on the detailed view. How exactly does that make it "preposterous"? You are just throwing around these things without any form of elaboration. I, for one, think the new task manager is much better than before. I still prefer Process Explorer, though.
Getting rid of msconfig was a dumb move for troubleshooting.
Um, it's still there in 8.1. (I've never had to use msconfig, though: Autoruns is better for cleaning startup.)
The file explorer interface is ridiculous,
You just hate everything, don't you? I, for one, love the new File Explorer. I still miss the classic Explorer from XP, but the Explorer in Windows 8/8.1 goes a LONG way to fixing all the things that Vista broke.
* Toggling hidden items in 8: 2 mouse clicks. Toggling hidden items in 7: a keypress, a bunch of mouse clicks (I think it was 7 when I counted?) and a bunch of mouse movement in between.
* Toggling between details and thumbnail view in 8: 1 mouse click. Toggling between these in 7: 2 clicks. (I switch back and forth a LOT when managing photos.)
* The status bar is back.
* The detailed information pane is now off to the side, which makes better use of excess horizontal pixels and saves vertical pixels, and because there is more space, a lot more information can be shown. This alone right here made me want to ditch Windows 7.
* The most common complaint that I see (since you didn't bother to even explain why you dislike the new File Explorer) is that the ribbon takes up too much space, but that's only if you leave it expanded all the time. By default, it's minimized, and clicking on a tab doesn't expand it permanently, so it behaves a lot like a menubar. If you use it like a toolbar, then, yea, it's space inefficient, but who the heck actually made use of Explorer's toolbar? In Windows 7, I used keyboard shortcuts for common things like copying/pasting/etc. and then had to go menu-digging for the more advanced (and far less frequent) things. The toolbar was completely useless. In 8, the ribbon is, as I said, more like a menubar, except more convenient and capable.
* Oh, and the search tab fixes much (though not all) of the biggest Explorer regression from XP to Vista.
I honestly can't think of a
single reason how 8's Explorer is worse than 7's, and for me, the
single biggest reason I use 8/8.1 is the new File Explorer.
Yes, it is. So what? I disabled the charms hints and made it so the upper-right corner won't activate it. I virtually never see it.
True the interface is subjective but going back to 2001's XP beta watercolor UI is pretty humorous and fugly compared to Aero.
Aero (as in the GPU-accelerated compositor) is now always-on; the old fallback system's been completely axed. So I get Aero inside a VM. I get Aero over RD. I get Aero even when I play Blu-Rays (which used to kick me into Basic on 7).
What you are referring to is the lack of the "Aero Glass" visual effect, which is separate from Aero-the-compositor, but I never liked that garish faux-glass thing. Almost as cheesy as Apple's fake aluminum texture in their programs. But Aero now being always-on? That's a HUGE plus for me because I do a lot of stuff over Remote Desktop. Which is the second biggest reason I love 8/8.1: Remote Desktop is SO much better now. There's the always-on Aero, and there's the automatic lossy compression that kicks in to maintain responsiveness. Gone are the days when accidentally launching a video over a WAN Remote Desktop essentially made the session unusable.
Oh the power user menu is sweet but that is something that should be offered in a registry tweak, not an OS designed for touchscreens (try long-touching that far corner with anything but a stylus).
Wait, so you claim that 8/8.1 is all about the touchscreen and that it offers nothing for mouse/keyboard users, and then you complain that the biggest gift to mouse/keyboard users (since there are really only two ways to activate the power-user menu: using the mouse or using the keyboard shortcut) isn't touch-friendly. Seriously?
If Windows Media Center runs without glitches, I heard it is troublesome in Windows 8 and 8.1, and it doesn't cost extra to install WMC, than maybe Windows 8. Otherwise Windows 7.
I'm a huge Media Center fan (I have multiple SiliconDust tuners on my network), and I haven't noticed any problems in WMC in either 8 or 8.1.