You Can't Bypass the UI Formerly Known As Metro On Windows 8

colinneagle writes with this excerpt from Network World: "The final build of Windows 8 has already leaked to torrent sites, which is giving the propellerheads a chance to dig through the code. One revelation will probably not sit well with enterprise customers: you can't bypass the don't-call-it-Metro UI. Normally, you have to boot Windows 8 and when the tiled desktop UI (formerly known as Metro) came up, you had to click on one of the boxes to launch Explorer. Prior builds of Windows 8 allowed the user to create a shortcut so you bypass Metro and go straight to the Explorer desktop. Rafael Rivera, co-author of the forthcoming Windows 8 Secrets, confirmed to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet that Microsoft does indeed block the boot bypass routine from prior builds. He also believes that Microsoft has blocked the ability for administrators to use Group Policy to allow users to bypass the tiled startup screen. There had been hope that Microsoft would at least relent and let corporate users have a bypass, if only for compatibility's sake."

Comments

MOD PARENT DOWN

[rsmith-mac]

As someone who actually has a copy of Windows 8, TFA and TFS are correct and the OP is wrong. Microsoft has removed the previous methods of booting straight to the desktop.

Re:the thing that confuses me

[SternisheFan]

It never was "Metro", it seems. I found this article... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/10/metro_is_modern_ui_now/ Also found this, a bit off topic, but get ready for £the "Surface2"... http://m.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/microsoft-is-already-working-on-surface-2-tablets-1091358

Re:microsoft fanbois will still buy it

[Chris Mattern]

Yeah. After all, we were forced to go to Vista because support for XP was discontinued. Oh, wait. That's not what happened at all.

Re:microsoft fanbois will still buy it

[Golddess]

If you hate the UI changes in Windows Vista, which Windows 7 kept, and you don't like Metro, then you are kind of screwed.

Not really, you can tweak 7 to make it look almost the same as XP.

Re:no way UEFI lock down will come soon

[MaxiCat_42]

What makes you think that businesses buy PCs with an OS loaded. A large enterprise would just load their volume-key enabled image of their current Windows build for that hardware. If the current standard is XP - that's what users get.

Phil.

Re:no way UEFI lock down will come soon

[oakgrove]

Windows Server 2012, aka Windows 8 sans Metro

Unless you specifically use Server Core mode, Windows 8 comes default with the Metro interface.

Re:no way UEFI lock down will come soon

[hairyfeet]

Let Hairy help ya pal, what you do is run SIW and then bypass the OEMs and get the drivers directly for the hardware from the chip makers. Frankly ALL laptop support is piss poor, you're lucky if you get even a single update for the drivers, but since all the parts are bog standard its easy enough to just bypass.

Another good source is Driverpacks, they have virtually every major hardware driver for Win 7 and their drivers aren't as "picky" as the OEMs. Slap them on a stick or DVD and let it run, when its done you have a fully functional system.