Extremetech editor: ‘Windows 8 Metro interface is a train wreck’

If you still haven’t decided whether to install Windows 8, then this article from ExtremeTech might have some  interesting points to consider. Editor Joel Hruska has tested Windows 8 and according to him the Windows 8 Metro/Desktop interface is a ‘train wreck’. His first point is that when you open a picture outside of the Windows 8 pictures folder there are hardly any of the options you’re used too. In Windows 7 you’ll have a pretty advanced picture editor when you open a picture anywhere (Windows 7 Photo Viewer) in Windows 8, outside of the pictures folder, you can’t do a thing.

Also when you want to browse your pictures, Metro has a new interface but it isn’t efficient. According to Hruska it ook him 63 scrolls on Metro to browse his picture collection, while on the desktop it took him only 7. When measured in time Metro took 24 seconds to browse his pictures while on the desktop it only took him 3, the same applies for browsing videos.

When you’ve finally found a picture and want to view it, then Metro just zooms it for you. A picture of 800 pixels wide becomes a picture with a width of 1600 pixels because Metro just zooms it. If it annoys you you’re out of luck, it can’t be turned off.

The last point he raises is about sharing on Metro. In the Metro news app there is no way you can share an URL because the application doesn’t show URLs. It can share to Twitter, Facebook  and e-mail. But on Twitter and in e-mails it will create a link starting with ‘bingnews://’ which can only be opened by people with Windows 8, others simply can’t open it.