Slashdot Mirror
Replacing Windows 8's Missing Start Menu
jfruh writes "The Start Button, which has offered Windows users quick access to important programs, folders, and configuration options since 1995 and has looked more or less the same for all that time, has been re-engineered beyond recognition for Windows 8, replaced by a Start Screen of colorful Metro tiles that greets the user upon startup. One big problem: once you enter Desktop mode to access non-Metro apps, you lose easy access to all the stuff you expect from the Start Button. This has given rise to something of a cottage industry for Start Button replacements, with multiple replacement utilities available even before Windows 8 officially arrives."
replacing the missing Windows 8 with Windows 7 instead and just like, carry on with life?
You can still buy computers with Win 7
You might hate it, but you're gonna look really stupid if you don't know how to use Windows 8.
Stop Bitching and complaining about every change in technology and get use to the the Damn thing.
I remember all the bitching and moaning about the Start Button when it was created. And now is is some God Sent UI that you can't live without.
If you get get Windows 8. you will figure it out shortly and you are back to normal.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If many people can quickly create something that looks like a decent Win7 start menu, why can't Microsoft just do the obvious: leave the start button there? Or at least offer the option to re-enable it. It doesn't seem like a major support burden for them, does it?
none
for eats, or bytes.
Another question has yet to be answered: in Windows 8, is the BSOD still Blue? I mean, losing the emblematic Start button is one thing, but if the BSOD disappears as well, users will be really disoriented...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
thats a pretty boss application launcher, just needs scalability to make it useful for htpc interfaces
I know what I like and dislike, and when I find that a product has changed for the worse, I find a better product. How's that for simplicity? And I did it all without getting angry like you did.
The GNOME developers did the same thing with GNOME Shell (GNOME 3). With Windows 8, I was hardly able to do anything, and it took forever to figure out how to use it, nevermind trying to actually get back to the Start Screen. Immediate -1. GNOME Shell? It's different, but if it wasn't for the single "Activities" button, I probably would have been doing the same thing. Additionally, a list of favorite applications (such as you'd have in a dock, which is visually similar to GNOME Shell's "Dash" feature) is really useful in terms of productivity. I wonder if the Windows team will ever get that part right.
I have been a captive in America my entire life. Everybody and everything uses customary units instead of metric.
I tried, I really did, to use Win8 on the desktop both without Start Menu replacement and with one. I absolutely could not stand what felt like an unnecessary extra step between switching back and forth. I don't care if it works on a small touch screen, it doesn't work on my desktop, get rid of the extra step AND give me a Start Menu. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
-Use tons of workarounds that make Windows 8 works sorta like Windows 7.
-Keep using Windows 7.
That's a hard one...
Why would anyone use an OS with an interface meant for tablets on their desktop/*book? Are people going insane?
It's easy to get to non-metro apps in Windows 8. The Windows key launches the metro screen where you can see tiles for any metro or desktop app you've placed on the start screen. Also, typing any character after that screen comes up will start a search for app names containing the string you type (just like the Windows 7 Start button search). I find it no less convenient than the Start button.
And that is really, to get rid of "legacy" apps entirely. I think Microsoft is pretty tired of having third parties (hence, the reason for the surface) and OEMs give their hard work a bad name. So what they are doing is introducing a new API (Windows RT) that requires "certification" (Minecraft didn't want to do this for whatever reason to "stick it" to Windows 8), which means that they require that if you have an app in Windows 8, it uninstalls *completely* and *cleanly*, among other performance indicators and things like that.
Microsoft is trying to retake its OS, under threat of the web, Apple, Google, etc. Windows 8, far from popular belief on this site, is actually a really good OS -- better in many ways, than Windows 7 is. It's faster (by a LOT), it's smooth, and its extensibility and APIs are still very good. The experience between "Metro" and the "Desktop" however, is extremely jarring. While I've written (and been modded up!) in the past about how bad the transition between the desktop and metro are, and how much better they "could have" done things, looking at a variety of information since then and forming a new opinion leads me only to think that they don't WANT it to be better. They want it to be jarring. They want you to start hating desktop apps and going to their store so you can get crap-ware free apps, that uninstall FAST and CLEAN, that don't bog down your computer, and have the additional benefit of getting a cheap piece of hardware to put it into like a Dell/HP/etc rather than paying two times the price for an Apple product.
Whether this is a good strategy or not, remains to be seen. Microsoft uses a LOT of data and telemetry to make its decisions in terms of UI design, API improvements, usability, etc. As much as I'd like to say that Windows 8 is just a boneheaded move, the performance of the OS is just too damn good to think that. And I know us here on Slashdot will revile the new UI and its use (though honestly, the loss of the start menu was no big loss for me as I adjusted to the new way in about 3 seconds). There are things that definitely need improvement even in the metro UI, but I feel we'll get that with a few patches.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is tired of having an unfriendly "BSOD" image, and they want to take steps to nix that, even if it means alienating a whole bunch of developers. I think they feel that their platform is still better on the whole than OSX (and I'd tend to agree here), and developers will still flock. By Windows 9, you won't see any more desktop apps being released... and that's the plan MS is heading for.
Just a warning before you flame me though, I'm not ENDORSING this idea, I'm simply stating that this is where I think MS is going.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I presume there's a list somewhere.
Personally I was never all that impressed with the start menu in the first place. The task bar was a nice addition from Windows 95, but a menu with submenus is a fairly tedious way of starting an application. Give me a list of icons.
Windows 8 with Metro sucks, it is horrible.
I use the open source Classic Shell it works great to make Windows 8 behave more like Windows 7.
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
The start menu is still there. You just don't see the icon in the task bar. All the functionality of it is still there. The first level is for commonly used programs. It's a nice clean layout that's easy to customize. From there, you can call up the 'All Programs' section. That's not organized quite so well, but it works.
There's no compelling reason to upgrade to Windows 8, but unlike Vista, there's no reason to actively avoid it.
I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and I love it. The way I used Windows hasn't changed by much. Loading any app is exactly the same process as in Windows 7, being: Windows Button + type the first couple of chars of the app and hitting the Enter key.
Pretty much.
Unix is expensive. [...] other than at work, I would bet you haven't touched Unix.
A Mac mini (which runs a UNIX OS since 10.5) costs $650. So you're right that a real UNIX machine is more expensive than a low-end Windows PC, but not so expensive that only businesses can afford one.
Push the God-damned windows key.
They are different target oses.
8 is clearly not a multitasking os, the UI focuses on one application at a time. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, it matches a tipical use of a tablet, for example. If you want to multitask, the desktop is still there, but it's not the main focus.
If on the other hand you need to do complex work, just go with traditional Win7.
I presonally think they both will live side-by-side and happily ever after.
Or just switch to Mint/Android.
1 outside wear those "screen friendly" gloves whenever you can
2 inside get your hands on one of those stylus things (hopefully you don't have to use multifinger gestures too much)
3 have a small squirt bottle* and wipes on your desk ("encourage" your fellow Critters to clean their hands before getting close to your monitor)
* please note i would suggest that said bottle have screen cleaner or hand cleaner in it but ...
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I can't believe I'm still seeing these posts, especially here on Slashdot. It should take you about at most two weeks to get used to the lack of a "Start button" I hardly notice it anymore. If this was Cnet or some other water down site then yes they may have complaints. It hurts my brain that people spend time on this stuff.
You know why I like the Start menu? It's because it sync on every device I own; tablet, desktop, and laptop. Do something once and it's saved everywhere.
I replaced it already, about two weeks ago I finally made the switch to Linux, Xubuntu to be exact. It's impossible for me to use Microsoft products anymore due to the changes that I can't fix with out the source code.
Not only that, who knows whats in that source code, really?. We already know Microsoft gave a back door to the NSA. Can you guys say with 100% certainty that the Chinese didn't build a back door in for the attacks in 2010?. Can you, any of you say for 100% certainty that the MPAA or RIAA doesn't have or will not have back doors?.
You already know Microsoft has done it in the past. Microsoft is a dodgy company with an even more unsound past. I do not trust them and I'm finished with their products.
to get rid of "legacy" apps entirely
No. They want a new legacy, same as the old legacy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Replacing Windows 8's Missing Start Menu
How do you replace something that's not there? Wouldn't you be *adding* it instead?
Most of you will hate this, so fair warning.
I love Windows 8. Let me tell you why. The start menu is supposed to be an efficient program launcher. Ok, so to launch programs with the start menu, you have to click the start button, click "all programs", click your app folder, then click the application to start it. That's 4 clicks. To start a program in Windows 8, I click the start screen area, then click the application, that's two clicks. That's a quantifiable efficiency gain. People have argued against this by referring to pinning apps to the task bar and desk top and the start menu pinned item lists.
First, Windows 8 has the task bar and desk top, so it doesn't make sense to argue with those, if they're so good, use them in Windows 8 instead of the start screen. Two, I like the desktop and task bar clear of every thing, I never liked pinning items to the task bar because it makes it less efficient to determine what's running, I like to glance at the task bar and know everything there is running, where as in the past I have at times, in a rush, mistakenly thought something pinned was running and something running was pinned, which caused problems. The Desktop is a workspace that ideally should be clear of short cuts, as a user will do things like unzip folders there, and create many temp work files there, that need to be moved or deleted, which short cuts will get in the way of, and accidently removed. The start menu's pinned item list can only contain a few items (5 or so), so while they can be launched in two clicks you are severely limited in numbers vs. the start screen which can launch 40-60 apps in two clicks. What I like to do is unpin everything except my main apps/games, and a few metro apps I use, then group them and name the groups (minus button in the lower right.) A small action that makes things much better than the default.
Visual recognition of large distinct icons is a much nicer way to launch programs, rather than reading folder names where often a folder name is not related to the name of the app you are trying to launch, if you have many apps it can be difficult to remember which app is in which folder causing quite a bit of digging.
With the start screen, in addition to saving clicks versus the start menu, and being easier to find the program, you can have live tiles that give you a lot of useful information. I have an email counter, several news sites, calendar, upcoming events, and other things one click away. So why not stick with gadgets and other widgets and system tray notifications you are probably asking at this point? Well, several. Security, stability, and Power. Metro apps are run in a strict sandbox, they install and uninstall in isolated, clean fashion, so no installation or uninstallation of a metro app can corrupt the system, user data, or other metro apps, and they have strict requirements such that they can not use any CPU when not being used by the user, and very minimum system resource usage for notifications. .5% cpu at all times, randomly accessed the disk, and increased DPC Latency, and it was a relatively well behaved email tray notifier as I tried a few others. A small amount, but it adds up for many such items. And programs like that that you (or the average user) gets from the web, have free reign over your user account, even if you don't run as admin (and you almost always have to give them admin at least once to install), they can still steal any user account data and credentials from your browser. Metro apps, being tightly sandboxed, can't read or touch any other data in the user account. I find this to be pretty important, and imagine a huge boon to productivity if users get a lot of their system/productivity utilities from metro apps instead of downloading random programs on the web, where the security risk is much higher.
Contrast this with some desktop apps I was running before to accomplish these tasks, my email program was using about
Windows 8 has a lot of performance increases in it, like for real time audio
"...I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease." - Linus Torvalds
I was forced into Windows 7 both at home and work. Yes, the Windows 8 not-a-start-menu is dumb, but the Windows 7 start menu is dumb too. Just get classic shell and get on with it. (Well, classic shell, a better file manager, a better search window, a better taskbar... all things that were necessary for Windows 7, too.)
Lot's of people kept using Program Manager anyway because they didn't like it. I wonder how many people still do now?
throw new NoSignatureException();
They want it to be jarring.
That's pretty believable. They did that back in the 90s with the "DOS box" terminal window: they changed the default colours that DOS actually used, to make them more saturated and jarring. (I forget if this was Win 3.1 or Win 95.)
Who would want to keep using one of those old DOS apps with the ugly colours, when you could move to Windows?
From towards the end of the article:
This reads like FUD against open source to me. Does she seriously check out, inspect, and build the source every time a new point release of, say... Chrome is released?
Crazy.
Why does the lack of a Start Menu confuse and annoy the average techie? I've used Windows 8 since the Consumer Preview came out, and I now have the full version. I suppose shutting down the computer is more annoying now, but why shut down the computer when Windows 8 never cold-boots anyway and sleeping is fast? Also, what else did we lose in the new Start Menu? My Computer. Fine, if you're a techie and haven't started using Windows Key+E, you're missing out, and if you're not a techie, just pin a "File Explorer" icon to the Start Menu. I think the new start menu is great: I now have a big palette of 44 programs I can start without scrolling, I just move my mouse and click. Need to access another program? Just scroll. Don't feel like moving the mouse? Just type.
How many times do you want to read what's on the rest of the screen while you're using the Start Menu? For me, and most people I would guess, the answer is basically never. So why not make it take up the whole screen?
Disclaimer: I actually like GNOME 3, I liked Vista when it came out, and I don't mind Mac OS X.
And that is really, to get rid of "legacy" apps entirely. I think Microsoft is pretty tired of having third parties (hence, the reason for the surface) and OEMs give their hard work a bad name. So what they are doing is introducing a new API (Windows RT) that requires "certification"
Utter bollox. The only reason MS is doing all this, is because they want a share of every sale of every software made for Windows, through their appstore. They don't, like they never did, give a flying supersonic shit about "third parties and OEMs give their hard work a bad name".
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
co-depending techie Luddites since the dawn of the computer age.
I have Windows 8 on my monster gaming machine at home, and I've been using it since the dev previews off and on until the last month or two, where I switched completely to 8 on that machine. It's fast, it's stable, and while the switch between Metro and Desktop is indeed somewhat jarring, I have found that I really don't miss the start button at all, and I adjusted to using the new Metro stuff in no time.
Most people don't spent all of their time at the computer staring at the UI chrome, they spend their time USING the applications, which still work the way they always have, with the exception that switching between them is a little different. Also the side-snapping works really well when you want more than 1 thing going on at once.
That said, I leave the Metro mode and use the Desktop for playing games from Steam, running VStudio etc, and I really wish they had not dumbed down the control panel stuff on the Metro end of things, but by and large it works just fine.
As an interesting anecdote, my 3yo son can navigate the Metro interface (using the mouse and keyboard, no less) just fine and start his games and stuff on his own, and learned to do this by watching me for maybe 5 minutes. Also he recognizes the difference between the Desktop and Metro interfaces, and when I am doing something on the desktop and he wants to play something from metro he will tell me he wants to play a game from "the other side." This is a term he came up with, so I assume he got that idea from the "flip" animation that plays switching back and forth.
While he uses Metro no problem, he can't successfully operate the Desktop interface on my wife's Win7 laptop. Like it or not, our children are going to grow up knowing how to use tablet-style interfaces even on desktop computers, and for them the desktop interface will just be a historical curiosity.
Use it for a for a few months. You'll realize the start menu is outdated. When I use Win7 no it feels clunky and slow.
I highly doubt they will take away the ability to sideload applications, but they *do* want developers who write for Windows 8 to get "certified". Those certifications ensure a rigorous check against performance, uninstallation, etc.
And I've spoken to quite a few friends inside MS that tend to think that Sinofsky is of the opinion that Dell and other OEMs fucked them over with crapware baked PCs. It's no wonder MS introduced the "MS Signature" line, that has zero crapware installed by default under his reign. I'm not discounting they aren't happy about the money, but I do think they realize that a declining marketshare is more important to address than what they'd make up in the app store.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Clearly I'm misunderstanding something. A badly organized start menu is a pain in the ass. Win Key + a letter or two of the app name and off you go - that said, I'm keyboard centric rather than mouse.
I might add that apart from what looks like a device compatibility issue with my Garmin running watch under the consumer preview, it all works extremely well. The fact that I've not bothered to replace it with the release version is a testament to that.
Suck it up. Change happens.
The Start Button, which has offered Windows users quick access to important programs, folders, and configuration options since 1995
This is the problem with this new interface, it's anything but quick.
It's ugly, it's slow, and it's obviously not designed to be interfaced with a mouse.
I have two lists of programs, ones i always use, which are pinned to the start bar, and those i often use, which are in my start menu.
A lot of people are saying "Oh, just pin more things to the start bar", yeahhhh, no. My start bar is cluttered enough as it is.
And to counter all of you saying "Oh, people were the same way with program manager with 95!", program manager is SLOWER than clicking start then clicking a program name.
It's all about speed, which the metro has NONE of.
I've always been a huge pusher of updating OSs, I even switched to vista when i could get my hands on it, but this crap?
If a customer asks me if they should switch, I'll give them a firm "no"
I've spent some time with Windows 8 and I can say that I understand and appreciate its motivation. However, I wholeheartedly agree that Windows 8 on a desktop makes me pine for a more traditional Start Menu.
It isn't that the classic Start Menu was some perfect make-it-or-break-it feature for me, but what I miss about it is how non-invasive it is. As of Windows 7 all I use it for is to press the Windows key to type and launch an executable. Windows 8 does this as well, but it has to change the whole screen to do it which really feels like an interruption to my workflow or ability to concentrate on what I'm doing.
That said, I'm fine with Metro if it didn't have to fill my screen. The whole Windows 8 package would be greatly improved if it had an easily-toggled mode of operation for tablets, or for desktops. In tablet mode, it would behave as it currently does where Metro and its respective apps fill the screen, with the classic Windows desktop on the sideline.
For the proposed desktop mode, however, it would default to the traditional Windows desktop and would provide a familiar Windows logo in the lower left corner. Clicking this or pressing the Windows key would not produce a Start Menu but rather a self-contained Metro interface in the lower left corner of the screen. Launching Metro apps from here would simply put them into their own self-contained windows that can be managed as they would be with any other Windows OS.
Transitioning between these two modes of operation would be easy enough (for people who want to dock their tablet at home with a keyboard/mouse/monitor, for example). All those open Metro apps could easily be transitioned between being standalone windows in the classic desktop, or full-screen in the Metro interface.
/* No Comment */
ANIT trust laws will hit MS hard if they push to hard with app store lock in even more so in the EU
When you can assign your own shortcut keys to any program that is on the desktop or in the programs menu?
They could port MWMto Windows. Then you'd have a root menu, configurable with all of your desktop apps, utilities and whatnot. No Start button needed.
Have gnu, will travel.
My keyboard doesn't have a 'Windows' key!
-- Jesus Christ
Have gnu, will travel.
When are the Windows folks going to get to the desperation phase?
http://www.vtaide.com/gleanings/expectation2.htm
I'm lucky I was able to do so, but I jumped the Windows ship entirely mid-Vista era. Before I get flamed to death, I'm only speaking for my perspective, here.
For me, I can spend mental resources on several things: learning new technologies, making things work, development, etc. The key point is those resources are finite. Having done Windows administration since NT, I can tell you from past experience and from where the Redmond train is headed you will always be re-learning how to do the same things. Damn near everything I learned in linux with Redhat Valhalla still applies or is just slightly different now, in 2012. What has changed is me. Because of the time I have spent honing my skill with an OS whose skills tend to carry over, I have an entire corporate network that I can easily manage, with comfort knowing there will always be a distro, mine or someone elses, I will be able to get work done in. From a software persepective, I'm really happy I didn't spend a bunch of mental resources learning Silverlight/.NET whatever and put the time into learning Scala, Python bunch other exciting techs that are Free to do what I want with, not just MS. I don't want career lock-in, essentially.
Just my 2 cents, we'll see if my bet continues to pay off.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Microsoft seems to design their software not to give customers what customers want, but to change customer behavior into what Microsoft wants. As a result, many users have a much harder time using new releases, whether it is Windows, Office, or .Net. The Start button in Windows 7 is a big time saver for many. For whatever reason, probably to wean us from the keyboard, Microsoft has ditched, or at least crippled it in Windows 8.
.net. Maybe users prefer not like to be pressured into using confusing libraries in Windows Explorer. Maybe the philosophy of "If we build it, they'll have to come" is why Microsoft is so far behind in operating systems for tablets and smartphones.
Maybe desktop users prefer not to be limited to a tablet operating system. Maybe users would like a functional help system in Office and
I don't feel the need to try and prove something by always having the latest of everything.
I agree for some cases. But other people have a responsibility to provide technical support for people who do "feel the need to try and prove something by always having the latest of everything." Such people need to be aware of where Microsoft moved around all the configuration options in "the latest of everything."
Are all of you one-handed? Do none of you have keyboards? The Start screen and your programs aren't multple clicks a way, it is a single tap of the Windows key to get access. Then you can launch your app with a single click. You did put your most commonly used couple dozen programs right up at the front of the Start screen didn't you? And then you unpinned all the MS apps that you'll never use too right?
I've been using Win 8 at work, for about a week now, and I like it. The Start screen, combined with pinning to Taskbar, is infinitely better than endless desktop icons and a tray full of quick launch shortcuts.
Also, I'm sure I'll get an "insensitive clod" for that one-handed remark.
I have no sig.
Microsoft doesn't realize most people use windows because they are familiar with it, once you start changing it like this people will explore options like Apple, Linux, etc.. to compare against the 'New Windows' and might move from Windows to something else entirely. They should have made this metro as a new option you can toggle on and off and let their users gradually into it - not force it upon them
To each his own. I've been using it for several months, and I continue to miss the start menu sorely. The Metro way seems clunky and slow to me.
I've been avoiding installing a replacement start menu, just to give things a chance, but I'm giving up and installing one. And avoiding Windows 8 as much as I possibly can.
I am surprised
There is some real annoyances. (BorderWidth / BorderPadding needs a registry hack - that border size is maybe good for a 3 year old but if you can use a mouse properly then )
The language bar enables itself regardless of the settings randomly.
Cannot use the right click menu for Windows Defender. (Probably to make people more likely to keep smartscreen enabled).
Removing a file association doesn't seem to work with assoc
Smartscreen makes your browsing laggy and is really annoying.
You have to use the command line shortcuts to do some stuff which is ok.
(e.g alt + f4 / windows key + x / windows key + r)
Honestly how can any free thinking individual be excited for windows 8? I'll stick with Windows 7, where I can install whatever I want whenever I want.
If, after releasing your shiny new product for beta, people spend the most effort making it operate like some other product (including your most previous one), then you did it wrong.
Go back to the drawing board, and try it again.
I've replaced the Windows start menu with...FreeBSD. I've had enough of Microsoft changing the way I use MY computer. They can innovate all they want, but not on my time or with my money. With Linux and the BSDs, there are plenty of other choices that work perfectly on standard x86 hardware (laptops included).
Using a computer isn't about knowing where everything is so much as knowing a few general principles about how things generally work in an OS, and being ready to figure things out.
Until you have to help a relative with an OS-specific problem over the telephone, as I have had to do several times. I don't think the relative would be willing to read you the entire screen just so that you can apply such general principles.
I wonder if there's an app to fix poor sales of Windows 8, and save Steve Ballmer's job.
"The bottom line is that Microsoft is tired of having an unfriendly "BSOD" image, and they want to take steps to nix that, even if it means alienating a whole bunch of developers. I think they feel that their platform is still better on the whole than OSX (and I'd tend to agree here), and developers will still flock."
so, you are arguing that Microsoft will get developers to flock to their platform by "alienating a whole bunch of developers"?
If they can get a new host of developers by making it "cool" again, losing legacy developers won't be an issue. Or, those legacy developers will turn around and write code that MS will get behind. Win win for MS.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Two weeks back I installed a webcam in my Win7 machine to use some video chat application. An old webcam salvaged from some discarded old pc in the basement. Then Win7 refused to sleep. The monitor dutifully goes to sleep in 15 minutes of inactivity. The computer should follow in another 5 minutes. But the machine would not go to sleep. I knew it is always the device drivers that keep the machine up.
Turns out this web cam launches Windows Live Messenger service, which keeps the machine up. Even if I close all windows and kill it, it would not let the machine sleep. Ended up having to uninstall Windows Live Messenger and everything named "Windows Live" to get my machine to sleep correctly.
Do you know the vendor of that webcam that screwed up so badly and gave such a bad name to Microsoft despite all the hard work they are doing?
It was Microsoft! (The windows live is a dead give away and the punch line does not punch). Before the go about rooting out all those hardware vendors who damage Microsoft's reputation by their shoddy work, may be Microsoft should first make sure its devices work correctly and try not to pitch services in my face like some despo street hawker in the bazzaars of Baghdad.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Do you have a desktop? Are you a gamer?
Then download Windows 8 Service Pack 1 Desktop Edition, it adds an "Enthusiast" button instead of metro for the "crazy wacky desktop enthusiast"!!!
Get it now in the Microsoft App Store for $49.99!!!!!!
*hurries and pays and realizes all it added was a start button... with racing stripes!!!*
I've been using it (actually Server 2012) at work for a while. To get the Start menu, you hit the Windows key (likewise on bootup to get the real desktop), much simpler than mousing over to the bottom left. There are _zero_ restrictions on installing signed or unsigned shareware off the 'net: how free can you be? Metro does sound like a complete bust, but I'll try it if I ever need to run a Metro app: turning off UAC, which is just as essential as it was on 7 or Vista, also disables the Windows store, BTW.
The new start screen works fine, if you don't see the app you want (and it displays a LOT more choices than the Start menu), just start typing and it works (AFAICT) better than Win7. If you want My Computer, Servers, the Run command, etc, you need to learn a couple of Windows-key shortcuts, that are much faster and nicer than going to ANY menu. I keep a list on my corkboard and people drop by to use and/or copy it.
What's the problem? I've concluded that I actually like Win8 (much better than Apple's Lion, the last version I tried) and would be likely to install it on a new machine. Disclaimer: I am oriented towards learning to use new software as delivered rather than tweaking it. I strongly avoid customizing OS's (i.e., disabling UAC is necessary, changing skins and shortcut keys generally isn't.)
"Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has called Windows 8 'puzzling' and 'confusing initially,' but assured users that they would eventually learn to like the new OS."
Why get used to it?
The start menu is horrible I wish it would go away. It was designed so that someone with no idea what they're doing can guess their way to the correct destination. Much like the horrible category mode that control panel had. Example:
Uhmmm I've never seen a computer before I guess I want to start here uhm games, uhm Myst, uhm Start Myst.
That's the thinking but it even fails at that because it's more like:
I want uhm start... wow that's a list of things hmm.. oops the menu closed ok open it up again ok uhm games... no.. I want Borderbund software... uhm ok Cyan Games? Uhm Myst... Play myst in window.. no play myst fullscreen.. yes.
... and it's more powerful than the start button of old. Press Win+X and a multitude of power user options appear in the bottom left corner. (where most people kept their start button) Alternately, just press the Windows key and start typing, and the text will automatically be applied to the search filter.
It takes some getting used to at first, but after a week or two of regular use it actually becomes pretty natural. YMMV
Microsoft... King of the shitty install... suddenly cares that programs leave shit behind when they uninstall?
Since fucking when.....
I don't believe this is anything related to the real reason for metro.
This is a microsoft attempt at lockin. Walled garden deployment.
We wanna sell people crap overpriced 'apps' too!
This is yet another move of 'ME TOO! MINE MINE MINE MINE!" from microsoft and nothing more.
Pff... like they care about useless files and bloat left behind... really. thats just delusional. its fucking windows.
The "Photos" screen saver caused the same problem in Vista. Use that screen saver and your machine wouldn't go to sleep. I don't know if they ever fixed that bug in Vista and they removed the entire screen saver from Windows 7!
All MS has to do is add a start menu in Windows 9 or Windows 8 SP1 and those guys are out of business.
The problem I have with Windows 8 is that Microsoft don't know what to do. They've been experimenting with tablets many years before the iPad, but without much success. The first iPad comes along, BAM! Apple have now effectively created a new market even though in theory, Microsoft's years of experience with tablets should have had more of an impact by now. So Microsoft are concerned about what they should do, so they come up with a new interface and platform aimed at touch devices rather than a hacked version of the existing WIMP interface grafted onto a tablet/phone. This makes sense.
BUT... and this is the bit that annoys me... Microsoft seems to believe that the only way they'll get more success with their phone and tablet line is if they FORCE this interface onto their traditional Windows platform, which one normally finds on non-touch desktops and laptop. They removed the Start menu and the ability to easily boot straight into the desktop instead of the Start screen because, well, people naturally will gravitate into doing things the way they've always done them, and will likely not even bother with the Metro functionality if this was possible. Microsoft have to force people to deal with Metro as much as possible because it's the only way they'll be exposed to the interface that Microsoft is using on mobile devices. They won't deal with Metro by choice, because it has few benefits on the desktop.
Microsoft are trapped with Windows 8. If they provide an option to disable all the Metro functionality, people will take the option and nothing will improve for their mobile division (and hence their fear of slipping away into obscurity, a fear I think is overblown to be honest). If they force people to use Metro, like they have, then people will resent them as no-one likes using something which they hate and know was forced onto them simply because the company is failing elsewhere.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
I like change so I've googled around a lot of articles about the lack of a start button. You basically have to learn two keyboard shortcuts and everything is fine. The other thing people don't like is multiple clicks to shutdown your machine. Once I found out that Microsoft reckons most laptops, desktops and tablets have a sleep mode and they thought "We'll just let the computer do that" I stopped worrying. I had a colleague once who used to spend a day on every new version of windows making it look and work just like Win95. Whats the point?
I can't remember the last time I actually used the Start menu as a "menu". Ever since Windows 7 came out, I've pinned my most frequently used programs to the taskbar, and I only ever used the Start menu as a search bar.
When I switched to Windows 8, I initially thought I might miss the Start menu, but after several months of use, I have no complaints. I mostly use the desktop mode; I can still pin stuff to the taskbar, I can search for stuff in the exact same way (hit the Start key and type to search), and I can hit the Start key to glance at live tiles (weather, stocks etc.)
so you can get crap-ware free apps, that uninstall FAST and CLEAN, that don't bog down your computer
???
Windows itself doesn't uninstall FAST and CLEAN. It always screws up other OSes installed on the same hard drive.
And Microsoft has been the king of bogging down your computer. My 2007 home computer with Linux is more responsive than my i7 work laptop running Windows 7.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I would be willing to concede that you may use a distro of Linux but other than at work, I would bet you haven't touched Unix.
*nix also includes GNU/Linux
Anonymous Coward's point was that GNU/Linux can't legally be called UNIX.
That M$ should have modified there Windows Phone 7 or 8 to be used for tablets and kept the desktop OS clean of tablet changes.
Like CircleDock, for instance.
I think this is true, and it's a logical progression really. MS won the "pc wars" by being ubiquitous, letting 3rd party hardware m/fs do their thing. It was kinda messy, but everyone gained. We gained cheap and upgradeable PCs, MS dominated their market, countless business sprung up supporting PCs, countless vendors emerged selling more and more amazing technology, cheaper and cheaper, until we hardly knew what to do with the cycles, hence the stunning games we have now.
Consoles wouldn't have evolved to the state they are now, if it weren't for PCs having set a very high standard for gaming, and all the existing R&D that had gone into graphics because of the PC gaming market.
Seriously, people forget how much we have to thank MS's efforts for - and IBM's for the original open PC. MS had to support hundreds of vendors writing drivers for all manner of cards and peripherals, always pushing what a PC could do, and MS had to provide a platform to support it all. It was a truly world-changing effort, whatever people say about MS's market tactics. The result is that *everyone owns a computer*, when 30 years ago they were only hobby or specialist machine.
And that isn't even mentioning Windows in the workplace, which opened up a whole other world, and then there's the commodity server market making up much of the Internet, which is dominated by Linux and Windows.
I grew up with the whole "Evil MS Empire" thing, but I feel very nostalgic and think we have a lot to thank them for.
Use it for a for a few months. You'll realize the start menu is outdated.
Outdated how? How is the lack of a start menu an improvement, unless you're one of those muggles who always starts their programs from a desktop icon? Me, I never see the desktop once I've opened a single program.
I've seen hundreds of comments explaining just how and why W8's interface sucks, how about explaining why you think it's better than the start menu?
Free Martian Whores!
Sorry, I can't agree with your analysis. I never have really liked the OS/X UI all that much. Apple's implementation of the dock is one of the things I dislike the most.
But then, I'm old school. My first GUI was an XWindows workstation (running CDE or Motif on HP/UX, I think). Right click to bring up a menu anywhere on the background, multiple configurable workplaces, cascading menus, this is the way that FSM intended a UI to be! :-)
But, to each his own. Just goes to show that choice is good, right?
My biggest gripe with Windows 8 isn't the Metro interface. No, my problem is Microsoft saw fit to reduce a large Start button to a tiny 4x4 pixel area. How in the absolute fuck am I supposed to click that easily/quickly/reliably when using multiple monitors or Remote Desktop? And the Charms bar is even worse as it's only a single pixel (so it seems, but it can't be bigger than a 2x2 area) in which I can activate it. Again, how do they expect us to use multiple monitors or windowed remote desktop with this crap? It's like trying to run XP on a tablet and use your finger to operate it - ridiculous!
Recently I worked on a socket application project for Windows 8 and Fedora.
Few things I have noticed:
- In Windows 7, to open RDC or .NET assemblies you press start type "mstsc" or "assemblies" and hit enter. In Windows 8, you press start, type "mstsc" or "assemblies" and hit enter. Exactly the same. You can actually type ON startScreen. It will automagically search and filter the results as you type.
- The transition from metro to desktop is really as smooth and quick as the start menu pops up OR even much faster! why? read on..
- The entire system is using hardware-accelarated-graphics. startScreen is ~60fps. Visual studio 12 is compiling vectorized assembly code by default and yet GPGPU.
- There are tons of other improvements in Windows 8 over Windows 7. The boot time, the file/memory/process management, InternetExplorer has much improved layout-rendering and js engine and is made standard complaint, native support for ISO, native support for hypervisor and you can boot your system from vhd natively.
- The system is capable of all kinds of inputs: keyboard, mouse, pen, pads, stylus, resistive touch, capacitative touch and even kinect!
Productivity wise, Windows 8 same as Windows 7 and Performance wise its much better.
Metro is a question mark... I guess it depends on the kinds of applications are going to offer in Store.. Xbox games would be a good start though...
I never see the desktop once I've opened a single program.
I rarely have just one program open, but I still can't see my desktop. Sometimes I arrange important icons in areas of the desktop not covered by windows, but I still spend most of my time in front of the computer looking at programs I am using. Not having a start menu is just dumb.