The idea behind the Windows 8 start screen was to bring a unified desktop experience to PCs and tablets, it asked a little of users to adjust to the change but unfortunately the users decided to jump on the media/press bandwagon and immediately dislike it without giving it a proper try. It goes to show how easily people are influenced by what they read on websites and in articles rather than getting with the facts.

Microsoft may bring the Start Menu back in Windows 9... that's fine, but ultimately as a unified experience for Desktop and Tablets the Start Screen is superior in many ways, and the impact to people used to Windows 7 desktop is very minimal tbh.

In reply to a post by btbert:

And its a right mess it is some of us are "Lucky" to have W8 on the works laptop and i would say 90%+ hate it.God knows who thought it was a good move to buy a new OS from MS , would you do it with your own money ?

Why do you hate it? Did you receive any training? Have you bothered to invest 30 or so minutes into learning how to use it properly?

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

The idea behind the Windows 8 start screen was to bring a unified desktop experience to PCs and tablets, it asked a little of users to adjust to the change but unfortunately the users decided to jump on the media/press bandwagon and immediately dislike it without giving it a proper try.

That's quite dismissive of you. How do you know they didn't give it a proper try?

I must admit that I'm increasingly tempted to put W8 (.1) on either my desktop or laptop - not sure which yet, they both run W7 - to get some experience, and to be able to help friends and acquaintances who have, or will, upgrade in some way to W8.

Given that if all else fails I can install, e.g. Classic Shell (other such utilities are available) to give me a more W7 like interface, that may be enough to persuade me.

It is dismissive but I've come to that conclusion because there is no valid reason why Windows 7 is superior, even if you hate the start screen, that is just a single thing and isn't the be all and end all. There are so many improvements to it I struggle to see how someone could prefer Windows 7 to it, the improvements in multi-monitor support alone make it a superior OS, and as you can appreciate, that is just a minor thing! To name a few more: Hyper-V included, RDP greatly improved, much faster boot times, does almost everything faster, more reliable, etc, etc. You get the idea.

On the standard W8/8.1 startup screen is a tile called Desktop. Just tap/click that and you get pretty well what you are used to with W7. The major and perfectly acceptable difference being the restart/closedown procedure.

The one thing you do need to do is set the desktop mode to use the desktop version of IE, if that's what you use. If you aren't careful the intuitive "Quick start" button in the taskbar goes to the messy Metro version.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The one thing you do need to do is set the desktop mode to use the desktop version of IE, if that's what you use. If you aren't careful the intuitive "Quick start" button in the taskbar goes to the messy Metro version.

Yep, excellent advice. the first thing I do on a lot of installations.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Why do you hate it? Did you receive any training? Have you bothered to invest 30 or so minutes into learning how to use it properly?

The only way to use it for business purposes, which Bert is doing, is to go straight to the desktop and stay there. As it is for anyone who wants to multitask.

That is the drawback of the Metro interface. It is not an effective tool for human multitasking. It appears Win 9 will solve that problem by allowing Metro apps to run on the desktop in the sort of window we are used to. That might be rather good .

Thing is, you aren't forced to use the Metro interface though. The first thing someone should be doing when they switch on their computer is either open a file, or open an app. Unless the file resides on the desktop (BAD PRACTICE!), then actually the start screen is the perfect choice, because you pin your frequently used apps or folders to the Start Screen. The icons are bigger, coloured, and easier to see than icons on the start menu or taskbar, so for the people who use want to use it to get on with their job, it is actually a lot easier.

The charms can even be disabled if they really are getting in the way (I can't see how tbh unless someone has dexterity problems), and all the metro apps can be unpinned if not used/required, so there is no reason why people should be running into problems with Metro.

Not only this, the start screen can be customised via group policy so that an employee can be delivered a customised start screen containing the apps and file shares they need to access. Most people only use a handful of apps as part of their day job. This is perfect. Things could never be easier to run Windows 8 for a business, assuming you have competent Windows Administrators.......

Edited by Pipexer (Wed 15-Jan-14 20:51:40)

Hmmm. I think I see what you are getting at. But if I do, it amounts to using the Metro interface to launch applications on the desktop. That could have the advantages you state, but I'm not sure those could not have been easily incorporated into the desktop in the first place.