Microsoft blocking boot to desktop in Windows 8

Well it looks like I'll be blocking Windows 8 from booting on my PC's desktop...

That''s OK, I'll be blocking Windows 8 from my life.

Sounds like their long term strategy hit an iceberg but they don't yet realize the ship is sinking.

Great. In addition to using an alternate Explorer, an alternate Browser, we also use alternate Desktops now ...

Wish people would be this vocal against all the b/s that congress and the rest of these dirty dog corporations try and force feed us

For businesses, I don't see what incentive this will do to encourage them to upgrade, apart from reminding those running XP/Vista to get to Windows 7 while it's still available.

On the other hand, at least they haven't crippled it as badly as I've seen with the Windows Phone. My brother use to have a Windows CE based phone, which I had some experience with. However, after trying out my Dad's Windows Phone provided by its workplace, I find it a big step backwards apart from being designed for the non-tech user and to be touch-friendly. Unlike my Android phone, its SD card is securely locked to prevent direct access, files transfers need to sync'd through its buggy Zune (like iTunes for iPhone) and many other features are tied into its live cloud instead of directly accessible. Even its office Apps are cut-back compared to what I recall with Windows CE. Basically, I'm sure glad I went for an Android phone.

Screw Microsoft and Windows 8. I will no longer be dictated to as to what I can and cannot do with my computer. I stuck with Windows XP for as long as I could, and I'll stay with Windows 7 until they realize how badly they f***ed up with Windows 8 and either remedy the situation or slide further into their swamp of stupidity and irrelevance (at which time I'll evaluate non-Windows alternatives, which hopefully will be a lot more improved than they are today [Linux, as improved at it has become over the years, is still not a permanent alternative for me]).

@CharmedonWB: We are. We're just vocal about it in the appropriate venues.

This is much ado about nothing. It you don't want to be on the Start page, just press the Windows key and you will be taken to the desktop, where you can live all day if that's what you want. No big deal.

People keep criticizing Microsoft for not innovating, and when they try to innovate, they get upset because the interface has changed. The Start page actually works very well. If you want to launch a program, just type the first letter or two of the program and it will appear on the screen. Click on the tile and you are in. If it is not a "Metro" app, it will open on the desktop. If you want it on the desktop, just create a shortcut in the normal way. If you want it on the taskbar, you can select this option from the start page.

Give it a chance!!!

Microsoft's biggest enemy is Microsoft.

@blegs38552: Forcing people to use a touch screen UI in a non-touch screen environment is not "innovation," no matter how you try to twist and stretch the word. It doesn't matter that you "just have to press the Windows key" to get to the desktop: the point is that THOSE OF US WHO DO NOT WANT TO START AT THE START PAGE HAVE NO OPTION TO DO OTHERWISE. We are having unwanted crap forced on us, with no way to turn it off. We are having our choices taken away from us, little by little, thanks in no small part to apologists like yourself. You may not give a damn, but the rest of us do.

By your logic, users of Windows 3.0 should have had the option to boot directly to a DOS prompt rather than to the Windows GUI of that time. I am using Windows 8 Release Preview on a 5 year old laptop which obviously is not a touch screen, and have no problem navigating around the Start screen. yes, there is a learning curve, but there was for people who had to click on an Icon in win 3.0 rather than type a command to launch a program. It is always your option not to upgrade and to continue to use Windows 7 9or are you still using windows 95 maybe?), but to call someone an apologist because they endorse a new paradigm rather than being stuck in the old one says nothing at all.

Hm. The box I had at my office, booted to the DOS prompt. I had to type "win" to run Windows then.

Michael

I'm never too sure about "innovation" and operating systems.

I don't know that I'd ask for "more features" if I could have "better resource usage", "faster services with more user control", and "better security" instead of cool new whirly-gig icons and fancier themes to consume what's-left-of-my-productive hours.

Oooh lookee, that's Color #63,117! That's so terrific!! What an innovation!!

Frankly, if they want REAL innovation, let's have REAL downloads. Have food delivered on-line. Thru the Internet. THAT would be an innovation. "Why can't we get Hire's Root Beer anymore?!!"

LOL...good one

@ Kerry56.
Are you saying CodePlex is not working on M§8 anymore (or for example if you go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer in regedit and then doubleclick {RPEnabled}. ?

Sorry, can't check this because none of my family [except for my son] is running Windoze anymore. My son has run the evaluation M§8 for few months way back, and he liked this option...)

BTW. Posted from my W§7 box at work.

Pinto2, I wasn't saying anything of the sort. I was just reporting on a story that hit the net. It is known that Microsoft was very busy ripping out old code from the operating system just weeks before releasing to manufacturers. Whether they did something to affect that particular example is beyond my knowledge.

Blegs, win 3.x did have the option. REM or delete the WIN command from autoexec.bat, since windows was nothing but a GUI application running in DOS. It was no O/S.

BTW, purchasing Windows is not an investment, it's more like punishment

What MS needs to understand is that what they want is secondary to what their customers want. They could easily make the Start button an option and also allow booting to the desktop. Why they don't want to make this an option for those that want it is asinine, IMO. I have a Windows phone and I do not want Metro on my desktop machine. If they ram it down my throat then the next phone I buy will not have their operating system on it. If they go the route they are indicating it won't only cost them in the desktop market. It will cost them dearly in the mobile OS market and they have enough problems there without creating more themselves.

You could even do this at least until Win98SE and I think even in Windows ME. Just add "BootGUI=0" to msdos.sys

Toward the end of DOS, there were a lot of add-on's. Memory managers, file-managers for expanding HDD capacities, adding in CD and MOUSE drivers to CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC. There were so many add-on's that were useful, and the OS was capable of handling. It was almost like add-on's were shotgunning their way into DOS.

Sort of like Linux.

I wonder if we're nearing a point where our OS's need to have this Cooked Spaghetti/Shotgun approach re-asserted? "Throw everything against the wall, see what sticks and that's the good features... everything else is garbage."

I don't know how many Win8 add-on's there are now, but this number is certain to expand. Maybe this is one of those useful revolutions?

Before Win7 came out, there was ample press about "Wait for SP1" because of the Vista Fiasco. After six months, though, there was more press saying, "Don't bother - migrate to Win7 now..." although I suspected most of this was financed by Microsoft's Sales Department.

Right now, I don't see much press calling for a "wait and see about Win8" at this point - it's either "I hate it" or "I'll move to it immediately". We are seeing more press hailing the 'under the hood' benefits, though. Yes, well, if the UI is divisive, then deflect attention and pretend User Experience isn't important but Computer Resources are. It's a shame that Users can't have it both ways, though.

In practice, I think "Wait until SP1" will still be a critical implementation point - if only for the cooked-spaghetti add-on's we might be seeing.

There is a way don't buy Windows 8 that is really simple don't buy it and they will learn the hard truth of whom pay their pay check....

Regarding better resource usage and faster services with more user control, take a look at the new Task manager.

As far as better security, anti-malware protection is now standard in Win 8. Is it as good as the 3rd party apps - only time will tell, but it is included.

Well in this instance wait for SP1 in windows 7 was a good thing considering all the updates that didn't crippled or ruin the windows UI factor. W8 on the other hand should just wait for aka WINDOWS X.... lmao.....

Was that a attempt at some joke???? Don't make me it won't take long for W8 to get malware attacked. Anyone claiming W8 more secure is living a shelter life and needs to get out more.... All O/S now and past made those very same claims...and guess what they got served......!!!

Microsoft Security Essentials isn't so bad, but I make sure Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is on every PC I own / touch. I can't count how many times it has protected my pale ass. I gave up on Symantec Endpoint Protection a year or so ago. You need an octocore CPU to run that bloatware.

Yeah, that was my impression from the demos I watched on youtube.. booting into metro seems lame, and forcing you to logon to metro is worse..

First of all, if you don't have a touchscreen detected, you should boot into the classic desktop and then press the window key to switch to metro, if you like.. so it's ass-backwards.. If microsoft doesn't fix this distinction, hackers/modders probably will..

Nevertheless, I think the greater problem is what does this do to PC & Laptop sales.. the vast majority of those computers DO NOT have a touchscren interface.. so unless that changes in 2013, it will NOT spur on PC sales, infact it might have the direct opposite effect. An O/S not generally user friendly for the hardwre you buy?!?!? WTF!!! I thought they were trying to get rid of those problems and perceptions from Windows Vista!!!

Agreed - I still have Norton Internet Security on my win 7 PCs but will probably not update it next year, as 2 of the three will be Win 8 computers and the combination of the built in package and malwarebytes should suffice (I will only run one of these actively - probably the Win 8 one). I can always install these on my windows 7 PC as well and save %0.00 or so.

So you programmed your own operating system?

No, but I did. Took me a month and a half. I call it "Duke OS 1.0". I can now play Crysis on max resolution at 225 FPS. Still some bugs to work out, though. I have to turn off the PC when I'm not using it, or it'll make crank calls to Apple and Microsoft. It also has a penchant for calling 976 phone-sex lines.

Probably the DirectX API calls that the Cry-engine tends to use.

Hey, as long as it's happy?

I think this is a good opportunity for Linux, but only if at least a major distribution makes installing software & drivers more user-friendly for non-technical users. In fact, installing the actual Linux OS is far more user-friendly than trying to install/update most software not listed in its package manager.

For example, when I wanted to upgrade Gimp to version 2.8 in Windows, I just downloaded the latest version, double-clicked the download and followed the steps.

In Linux Mint (a major Linux distro), I went to its package manager, but after refreshing its listing, its listing only listed version 2.6, so I went to its website, but it only listed source tarballs, which must be compiled. From past experience of trying to compile Gimp, I got into a major dependency mess where I gave up after several hours trying to download and compile one dependency after another. So after some searching, I found an article showing how to obtain the latest release compatible with Mint via the console and eventually I was got updated to Gimp 2.8. However, many users cringe at the thought of doing stuff via the console and I wouldn't be able to repeat this update process without referring back to the article.

So if a major Linux distribution could make software/driver updates as simple as downloading the latest release, double-clicking it and following a user-friendly wizard, I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a serious threat to Windows. As far as I'm aware of, no major Linux distro plans doing away with its start menu.

This might be true if people only wanted to surf the web and send email, but businesses and consumer use their PCs for much more than that. For example, I have yet to find a Linux program (and yes, I run Ubuntu on a separate partition) that comes close to giving me the control over my finances that Quicken does, or that is able to link to as many financial institutions. Ditto for taxes - show me a program for Linux that has the same power as Turbo Tax, and that can integrate with Quicken as seamlessly. Photo programs - yes, there is Gimp, but does that equate to Photoshop, or even Photoshop Elements (which I use because of it's great support for RAW files)? How about MP3 tag programs. audio and video file converters, support for downloading to my Zune player (or any MP3 player or cell phone)? Sorry - I like Ubuntu, but it is far from ready for prime time.

The problem Linux has at the moment is not enough users for major companies to consider making their products and device sync/management tools for Linux. Building up their user-base is tough, but having potentially fixable obstacles like I mentioned doesn't help, especially for trying to lure users who don't require all that Windows/Mac-only software or just use that software on another computer.

Take Facebook as an example (even though it's not an OS), I would imagine that company would face a similar problem if it did not attract enough users for major companies to consider setting up profiles on that social network. For example, if Facebook only attracted 1% of the social network market today, I'm sure we would be thinking the same that it never took off due to major companies such as Coca-cola, celebrities, etc. not having profiles on the network.

Missed buying Microsoft stock in 1981 at 67 cents cause I was broke and didn't know better. Will pass on buying Microsoft at 67 cents in late 2012 cause I'm not broke and I now DO know better.

But Apple has the most to gain if that happens and you want to buy an Apple share at 1,000 * 67 cents? (Which is actually very close to the current Apple share price.)

Just to make things clear. I know you'r just repporting what M§ says. And it's not my intention to shoot "the messenger".

Off topic
Whatever M§ comes up with will be hacked. Sure, I respect the immateriall law. Can't say the same abouth my 2 kids. All they want is to hack M§. Might be a generation thing. Believe me, they are good, not even M§8 will be spared.
But, do I really care. Njet. Linux gives me all the safety I need.
//Off topic.

We aren't angry because Microsoft is being innovative. We're angry because Microsoft is limiting access to something that a lot of us use and forcing something else down our throats that we will not use.

But there are some of the "we" who do use such features. I think Microsoft has more money to spend on market share analysis and prediction than an average PC user and so far they have done extremely well.

What I predict is Windows 8 will prove to be a major success even if most so-called power users continue to fill the web with billions of posts announcing "We Will NEVER Use Another Microsoft OS".

It's good to point out some so-called innovations seem to restrict innovative usage, but I see most of the threads and news about Microsoft's Windows 8 are being filled with all these anti-Metro posts. There are already many people using various pre-RTM and RTM versions of Windows 8 despite the Metro UI.

if you really hate that windows 8 boots into metro first download from stardock free beta and set it to not boot metro works great on the RTM.

but before you give up on windows 8 I would suggest learning the new OS it is faster than windows 7 and has lots of great features.

I was using stardock with windows 8 and i gave up on it because I really want to learn windows 8and I am glad I did it has a lot to offer with out the start menu pretty easy to learn.

Start8
Bringing back the Windows® “Start” menu

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is available and has taken the Windows interface to a whole new level. Unfortunately, the preview did not come with a desktop feature that the world makes use of billions times a day, the “Start” menu. Luckily, we have a solution!

Start8 brings the “Start” menu back to Windows 8. This product is free and is available now! Enter your email address below to receive a download link.
Features

- Adds a “Start” menu to the Windows 8 taskbar
- Enables quick access and searching of your installed applications
- Adds Run... option via right-click menu
- Adds Shutdown... option via right-click menu
- Choose a custom Start button image

New in v0.87, July 2012

- Automatically load your Windows desktop on login (vs the start screen)

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

I don't HATE that Windows 8 boots into the Metro interface ;it just annoys me. What I DO hate is that Microsoft are actively blocking great apps like Start Menu 7 and every other app like it. As far as I know Start8 is the only way to get a start menu on Windows 8. And I never said that I would never use a Microsoft product again. I am VERY eagerly awaiting the Windows 8 tablet and I have every intention of trying out Windows 8. I have the consumer preview I just haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

http://www.myce.com/news/microsoft-b...ndows-8-62998/
"Microsoft recently released Windows 8 to their manufacturing partners, and leaked versions of the operating system are providing more clues to Microsoft’s long term strategy with the operating system. One of the most controversial features of the new system is the Start page, formerly known as Metro. Many end users are less than thrilled with this interface and have been finding ways around it, including batch files to boot straight to the legacy desktop found within Win 8. But Microsoft has been plugging holes, and it seems many of the workarounds developed in the preview editions will not work in the final version released to manufacturers."

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/mi...ws-8-20120531/
"But now it appears that Microsoft is taking things a step further. According to Paul Thurrott, Microsoft has been busily yanking out all sorts of legacy code from Windows 8 in the run-up to its launch. And that legacy code includes every last bit of the Start Menu. With that code uprooted, you might have no other choice than to get used to the Metro experience."

http://www.osnews.com/story/26022/MS..._in_Windows_8/
"Microsoft has been furiously ripping out legacy code in Windows 8 that would have enabled third parties to bring back the Start button, Start Menu, and other software bits that could have made this new OS look and work like its predecessor. In fact, I've seen that several well-known UI hacks that worked fine with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are no longer functional in the coming Release Preview. And those with hopes that Microsoft would allow businesses, at least, to boot directly to the desktop should prepare for disappointment. That feature not only isn't happening, it's being removed from Windows Server 12 (Windows 8's stable mate) as well." When you buy a new machine later this year, you will use Metro, an environment wholly inferior, incomplete, and not at all ready to replace the traditional desktop in any way, shape, or form. Whether you like it or not."

Microsoft can officially kiss mt #@*!
Windows 8 is the most useless piece of crap I have ever tried to use in my entire life.
I downloaded the Windows 8 consumer preview image from Microsoft. When you download the consumer preview Microsoft doesn't say one word about needing a licence code. But you do - You run into this brick wall were the installer demands that you enter your licence code and it won't let you go any further until you do. What damn licence code?
I checked every where on the Microsoft web site and I could not find any mention of a licence code. I spent at last an hour scouring the internet trying one licence code after another all of which were rejected by the installer. These were licence code from legitimate site NOT from pirate sites!
I finally found a licence code that works and then guess what?
This piece of excrement does not allow you to choose where it is installed! When you hit install it installs over your Windows 7 installation. Period.
Not cool. Not cool at all.
Needless to say I will N ON T be buyoing Windows 8. Microsoft can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned.

Windows 8 is not about choices of the consumer, I take that back we have the right to choose not to use it.

So you'd prefer Windows 1.0 to Windows 8 if you had to choose between the two.

This is a tragic example of why user reviews on open web need to be seriously controlled and so-called news reporters need to be censored - including those working for and writing on CNET and Engadget.

^This is the most shocking and ill-conceived idea in the whole thread. Somewhere in Virginia, Jefferson and Madison are spinning in their graves.

Yeah but the thing about that is everyone is entitled to their opinions whether we like it or not and it doesn't matter if it is a user review or a reporter for the news media.

Controlling what someone says through censorship is nothing more then a violation of the basic human right of freedom of speech and press.

Tis just my .02¢
SJ

I know you are presenting your post as an opinion, but you obviously knew what I meant was hardly about about limiting human right or freedom of speech.

Most posts here and most other related threads are simple spamming against Microsoft either repeating the same "I don't want to buy any Microsoft product" or "I hate that new interface" endlessly and hardly discussing other features introduced or changed in Windows 8. At any rate, web user reviews and community forum posts cannot count much as most are anonymous and cannot be proven and held accountable. It is not easy to control, but it's better to find some better methods to analyze and synthesize the data regarding customer opinions and preferences. Just because there are so many "I hate Microsoft" posts should be not be a basis of concluding "Microsoft is EVIL" but that's been basically the function of these web communities.

As for freedom of press, do you seriously think an average news reporter at computer hardware and software website has so much right to be so much biased? How do you check that power?

If you don't like the word censorship, you could have just interpreted it as education, or enlightenment.

Hi Kenshin

All I'm saying is that everyone has the right to speak their mind and my reply was my opinion based on your statement which was your opinion as well, and there is or was nothing else intended.

SJ

It must have been apparent nobody could have prevented or prohibited any of the posters above, including you and myself, from adding one more Microsoft bashing post. It is unreasonable for anyone to suspect whether I mentioned "control" or "censorship" or not would reduce the total amount of all the trillions of anti-Microsoft or anti-Windows 8 posts. I do not even have the moderating power on this forum and surely my post was not related to any CIA or FTC intervention. Well, I'm not related to Microsoft, either, except in that I translated some of the Korean-language editions of Windows and Office help files and I bought a few copies, and some licenses through purchase of laptops and smartphones.

The very fact that so many posters on the web communities and under the news articles of various websites including CNN and BBC have posted against Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, or any other large corporation or politician encourages more anonymous posters to add to the already very misleading and chaotic flames that are mostly senseless, purposeless, unproductive, and it also presents wrong and very distorted sense of reality. Such mass of posts make constructive and helpful posting impossible in most cases and most places.

Yes I know what you mean about the negativity some have toward MS and other such big name cooperations, I think the bashing comes with the territory just like them taking each other to court with patent infringement lawsuits.

SJ

I have four (Yes 4!) live tiles left on my desktop : Desktop ,Store ,Weather ,and news. All the others either either didn't work (Maps) or I had absolutely ZERO use for (All of the others).

Microsoft really should give you an option to automatically alphabetize the tiles for the apps. You could spend days going through all the tiles deleting the help files and trying to organize them into some semblance of order.

What I would prefer is Windows 7.

Just because I didn't immediately fall in love with Windows 8 that doesn't automatically mean that I'm some kind of luddite who thinks we should all go back to Windows 1.0.
All it means is that I didn't immediately fall in love with Windows 8.
Please engage brain before posting.

OK OK OK!
What I do like about Windows 8
1) I like having tiles for applications. It looks very cool.
2) I really really REALLY like that you can wipe all applications etc and restore the PC to a new install state without actually reinstalling the OS.
3) I like the speed and over all & responsiveness and stability of the OS
4) I like how when you're in the Metro interface if you hold hover over the dash at the bottom right edge of the screen a list of options comes up as well as a link to a basic device manager
5) I like the task manager
6) I like how quickly Metro apps install
7) I like how after you install a Metro app you go back to where you were automatically

******************
EDIT
8) I really like how no matter where you are or what you're doing pressing the Windows key automatically brings you back to the Mero interface

Okay, you've just lost all credibility with me. This isn't Nazi Germany, man. I agree that there's a lot of crap on the net, but you have to filter it out. I don't like censorship, whether it be about reviews or news stories or whatever. Sure, I go to CNET and Engaget (and Fudzilla and Myce) to see the stories, but I visit just as much for the comments. In your censored vision of the net, I'd be pretty bored.

Ken, I'll argue censorship.

First, who'd do the censoring? Me? You'd trust ME to do that? I DO think I'd be a great candidate - probably the only creature in this galaxy, in fact, who could do it.

That's my humble opinion.

Except I get kinda lazy at times, and I want time off. Vacation. Holidays. Weekends. Some late mornings into work. Early afternoons off - that kind of thing.

So I would be VERY careful about annointing me as Galactic Censor. Things could slip thru the cracks.

And would you want someone more energetic? Well, out on that extreme, then you'd have the zealots. And whether they're worshipping Chairman Mao, Uncle Joe Stalin or sieg-heiling their way around the Banker Bush Family, I'm even more skeptical of zealots.

Two, we have plenty of censorship. In the Capitalist West, they spell it differently. It's spelled "edit". We "edit" the news.

"All the news that fits."

"All the news that sells."

"All the news that doesn't offend advertisers and whoever makes us offers we can't refuse." Pass the horsehead, please...

"Sorry, not enough time for all the news, so we'll edit and pick the parts we want."

Many folks believe the West has great free press. But every history of the 20th Century includes passages about citizens knowing how to read between the lines.

Those all refer to citizens of dictator states. The Soviet citizenry read between the lines. The Chinese. Germans. Japanese. They all knew how to read between the lines.

The West occasionally offers the delusion that we don't NEED to. "We have free press!" is their trumpeting call. Very loud, shrill and constant.

Except...would you rather know you're being lied to? Or would you rather delude yourself and not know?

In either case, the "facts" may not be known, but isn't there a wisdom to understand when one is being lied to, and when one isn't?

Yes. Of course.

* * * *

There are other forms of censorship. George Orwell discussed one possibility with his NewSpeak, where Thoughts could be controlled by controlling the Vocabulary, as if the number of our thoughts would also be reduced, and thus create a lulled mass of thoughtless workers.

Except...

Not every thought has a word to it. Such as?

Mash your finger. Except WHAT flood of words exactly describes the pain?

Walk along. Trip and fall. As you're falling, can you put every word into every sensation, and do it AT THAT TIME?

No. Of course not. Those are thoughts, though - realizations - a flood of understandings pour thru our brains. But they don't have words attached to every moment.

Thought will never be controlled merely by Words. Facebook and Twitter do their best to enforce limits on words, hoping our laziness will prevent us from LONG WINDED POSTS.

Like this one.

Censorship will always have something slipped thru the cracks, though.

When I do become Empress Of The Universe, I'm certainly I'll be tempted to employ more censor-like controls, or simply smite populations into other dimensions.

I'll try to take a deep breath before that and relax, and recall the words of my hubby.

"Mmmph grfffubble issshhttak" or something like that.

Which roughly means, "If you'd remove the blindfold, gag, shackles and noose, I'd let you have fun with me."

I think that's what he means, at least.

Can we get back on topic?

Yes. Staying on topic.

I am so sorry to hear all these negative comments, I thought our member were visionarys, willing to give anything a chance, I think and its just my opinion that you will all change your mind when the OS is released.

I will install win7, win8, and ubuntu side by side.

I totally agree with you Alan give windows 8 a chance it performs great for me and I am not going back to windows 7 for any reason it is a very solid OS and MS will not flop with windows 8 dispite all the complaints about the metro and the start orb gone it only took me a few days to figure out the new platform and I am happy as can be to see a new and fun OS.

msdn keys tomorrow I can't wait I am running the RTM pro and still pleased as heck.

Windows 8 is faster than win7 it takes about 10gigs less space on an ssd just to mention a few pluses of the new OS.

Not to mention the retail price is looking at about 69.95 or upgrade for 39.95.

I agree that $40 for an upgrade version of MS's latest operating system is too good to pass up.

But like many, I'll be looking for ways to minimize interaction with the start screen, and will refuse to buy into the whole Metro store approach for programs. I'm just not sure why it matters to anyone else how I'll be using the operating system.

I understand exactly what you mean Kerry I don't use the metro apps I will when MS releases their surface tablet which I expect to be lower with great specs to try and put a hurt on apple where MS has been late in the game in the tablet dept.

In the mean time I am totally enjoying me nexus 7 it fast quick and easy to use best 200.00 for a 7in mobile tablet device I have seen not an ipad but very fast the only downside for me is no expansion sd card slot and no 3 or 4 g support.

I agree.
I was sure I would hate the Metro interface but I like it a lot more than I expected. Most of the the tiles are useless (Sports Finance ,Photos ,Videos) but there are some nice free apps in the market (Games ,weather apps and A few other interesting ods & ends). And seeing all your apps on tiles on the Metro desktop is very cool.
I think they dropped the ball in some ways with the Metro interface though. Microsoft should have put tiles for My Computer ,Control Panel etc in the Metro Desktop. They could have made them optional or they could have put them all the way over to the right hand side of the screen where they would have been out of the way.

I like the metro interface but I haven't used it enough in desktop form. When using Win8 just have a hard time using it and end up touching my screen trying to make it do things. I do like the metro UI on my phone though.

I also hate IE when launched from the metro interface.

No, we're autistic people. Don't like change. Hate shiny colors. That sort of stuff.

Sure, i'll try Windows 8. Already tried the RC version on a VirtualBox. But as for now i don't have any purpose for Windows 8 on any of my machines. They will only make things slower. Well, perhaps one old little laptop will benefit, but i'm not using it much, so there's no rush.

i don't mind.... i LOOOOOOOOOVE Metro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Booting to Metro will probably work for 95% of people. But I don't see why Microsoft would be blocking the ability to boot to desktop.