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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."

4 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. MOD PARENT DOWN by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:microsoft fanbois will still buy it by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:no way UEFI lock down will come soon by MaxiCat_42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:no way UEFI lock down will come soon by oakgrove · · Score: 5, Informative

    Windows Server 2012, aka Windows 8 sans Metro

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

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