Windows 8 RTM – Goodbye start menu, hello Metro!

Windows 8, best thing that ever happened to Linux!
Look for New PCs to be loaded with either Ubuntu or Mint.

A 4th-generation iPad with Windows 8 preinstalled with 4096*3072 resolution will come before that.

I have been playing with Win 8 since the initial preview. At first, I was not impressed, but the more I do, the better it is. It took me a while to adapt to the metro paradigm in lieu of the Start menu, but I heave learned how to maximize it's usefulness, customize it, even create a tile to launch a batch file. It is different, but in time, it, or one of it's immediate successors (Windows 9?) will become as old hat as windows 7 is today. Don't be too quick to judge - remember, Windows 3.0 was thoroughly panned by DOS users too. Give Microsoft credit for reinventing the wheel instead of staying with the old model.

I have run Windows 8 RP and in many areas it is faster than Windows 7 but not fast enough for me to make windows 8 my primary operating system.
Having to install third party software just to get the start orb back is enough for me to stick with windows 7 and let 8 go away.

Metro will be a vast change in interface.. I doubt many PC users will give up the menu interface so easily.. even with android o/s there are menu buttons and the most intuitive way to get things done are to have the important utility icons on the home screen or secondary screens..

Sure, we should do away with drive letter nomenclature and things of that nature, but we still want to identify drives and manage them easily. As drive space increases exponentially, I dont' think Metro will be able to easily manage drives and arrays which will be 10, 15, 20 TB's.

I'm not a guinea pig, perhaps I will learn more & do some research before making broad conclusions about the interface, but I suspect it's not as robust as the windows PC's from 95 - "7"... And, in that regard.. the new O/S becomes more like dare I say it.. Apple PC O/S?!? WTF!! I don't care what name is on the brand, if you hollow out the interface and make it more Applesque, you're gonna push consumers into the arms of Google!! My appoligies in advance for this uneducated pre-conclusion if it's way off base..

Update: Win8 looks like a hybrid interface with Win7 backgrounded.. what I can see metro useful for is when you have a multiple screen setup.. Having Win7 in the default interface, and Metro running on a screen such as your HDTV even possibly in another room, which will be your access to your PC in every room of the house. These possiblites seem reasonable. However, I doubt people will touch their HDTV.. its more likely a tablet will be the remote interface of choice in the future. Google's arleady given us a taste of what is to come. No doubt M/S is leveraging that.. They will have to simply the PC startup screens and intitalization startup-- it's too clunky, IMO from what I've seen in youtube video demos.

Stop it, you're getting me excited.

Once HAMR is hammered out, I expect nothing less than a jump of 2tb's.. from 4 to 6, maybe even 8tb as the next HDD... anything less is lame..

I've always worked with keyboards and keybd shortcuts are fine with me.

But I'm trying to imagine the CTRL SHIFT HOME or END ("highlight this list to end" or "to beginning") function on a touchpad without my fingers ice-skating across the screen, all buttery from everyone else' playing goalie or something. "FORMAT C: YES/NO?" and somehow the "Y" is believed to have been sequentially tapped. Yeah, great. Can't wait for THAT to happen.

Again.

I am looking forward to giving it a whirl on a couple of side-by-side displays, though. My snickers are still reserved for the Microsoft employees that have 'allocated' their Metro Desktop to be organized - just like a Menu.

Not everyone wants a new interface. They are fine with the status quo. MS can easily include a Start Menu option and keep everyone happy. Maybe this is a way for them to get people talking about Windows 8 and the old adage "no press is bad press" is what they are after. At the end of the day I think the Start Menu will be an option in Windows 8. If it isn't then MS will have made a colossal marketing mistake.

free beta from stardock.

Stardock has a start orb for windows 8 RP and also works on the new RTM so the rumors on the net say and you can bypass the metro booting up all together and it boots very quickly.
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)

New in v0.86, March 2012

- Adds control over the "Start" menu size on the Explorer desktop
- Adds option for the "WinKey" to show fullscreen "Metro" desktop
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

I don't think M$ is doing it to get people talking nor for the press good or bad. but rather just a business tactic to get as many consumers as possible use to using the new style by forcing it on all consumers and doing it this way means they will be more familiar on how to use their new upcoming mobile device.

I believe this business tactic is mainly due to the fact that the market for desktops is shrinking while the mobile device market continues to rise and will continue to do so for years to come.

Tis just my .02¢

SJ

I think they are linking Windows 8 to their mobile OS too. I have a Nokia 900 with Window 7.5 on it and there are many good things I like but there are also some I don't like. If I were buying today I would have gone with an Android phone. I think MS is making their mobile OS too proprietary. As an example, the only viable web browser it can run is Internet Explorer and it is severely lacking in capability. MS has made it all but impossible for third party browsers to run on the OS with any speed and capability. Another thing is that it requires the user to use Zune to interface with the phone via a computer. The phone will not show up as a drive under My Computer.

I was a little premature in going the MS route. Now my wife loves the MS phone as it interfaces with her office email etc. very well. She can also navigate around with the OS well. She isn't a techie so she likes the intuitiveness of Windows 7.5.

While the Metro interface is not bad for a phone it sucks on a desktop, IMO. I think MS is nuts to sacrifice desktop functionality and flexibility to push their phone OS onto people that don't want it or have zero experience with it.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/software/...ownloads-15th/

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2...st-1-2012.aspx

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6008/w...ay-macbook-pro

for learning the Vietnamese language?

It was just a spammer. I removed the spam link from your post

Thanking of using a work-around to the start button or by-passing the new style of Windows 8, you may want to give this a read...

Windows 8 'Metro' Start Screen is Unavoidable

Course there is still Start8 by Stardock that was suggested in post #11 which according to the article below may still be a possibility...

Microsoft blocks Windows 8 Start button, boot-to-desktop hacks

SJ

As a long-time software developer and power-user, I find the metro interface extremely annoying. I have tried a number of hacks including 'Start8' from StarDock (which IS pretty good) but they are all incomplete. You can't bring back a windows 7 style start menu, you can only pop-up a mini version of the metro screen when you click on the start orb. And hitting the windows key always takes you back to the metro screen, as do a number of other unrelated actions. I eventually decided NOT to continue using Start8 and instead spent hours tweaking and arranging the metro screen to my liking by using explorer to go to the various folders where it stores all the shortcuts. (Same folders and Win7 start menu, plus a couple more).
But I'm a power user, and I have 3 large 1080p monitors. I do think that for casual non-technical users, especially on a new machine with a touch screen, that Metro will be a good thing. Very few people use anything more than a web browser nowadays anyway. But hey, Microsoft, don't forget us techies who support your operating systems!

Isn't it better to say someone running a new machine with a touch screen is more of a power user than someone with 1080p monitors? I used dual 2560*1600 monitors in 2007. Having a 2560*1600 or higher-resolution touch monitor cannot hurt and that doesn't make you less of a power user.

I wish I had 200-inch touch monitors on the wall, on the desk, on the ceiling, and on bed as well. Having touch on 6-inch and 15-inch small display units and 20-inch and 30-inch dekstop monitors costs more, but I see mass production cost has rapidly fallen.

Microsoft intended to ADD touch-readiness and a unified (and Microsoft-controlled) web-based application marketplace to Windows 8. Its intention was not to downgrade Windows to an Android-like OS. At first, it may look crude and some things are missing, but the convergence of mobile, CE, and PC is something nobody, not even Microsoft or American Mobil, can resist.

I have tried windows 8 in its various guises since the developer preview, at first i was tearing my hair out with the metro interface, couldnt work it at all without wanting to cave my monitor screen in, but having currently being testing the RTM im starting to get the hang of it.... i prefer the start menu obviously, but if its going to forced on us in a future windows releases, its either move onto a different OS or try and become familiar with it i guess.

this is the worst thing since vista

its confusing :/

I Like the new Interface, don't miss the Start Menu at all.

I liked the fact that they removed the start menu. It has been there since 95/NT.
I believe people would love to use tablets more instead of desktop.
Windows 8 and the next versions are meant for that.

it always takes time to adopt a new way or working/thinking. give it a chance and you may eventually like it, and understand why microsoft has done this

Firefox works better on the subway than on windows 7

I find Start Menu in Windows 7 to be useful and productive. I have no wish to use the Metro. It feels very dumbed down and less efficient for me. I am frustrated to see Microsoft seek to FORCE user to change on Desktop system. Why not just leave choice for Start menu available?

I actually like the start screen. the start menu was getting old and boring, i like that they came up with something newer.

I would simply like the option to switch between the two.

Right now, Metro is nearly useless. It only works decently on some MS pre-installed Apps and it's not showing its real potential.

We need to see implementation from third-parties in order to see it, but my beliefs are that is more powerful than W7 start menu. Let's hope that!

Hello chip1980

Welcome to the forum and the MyCE community

SJ

nice windows, totally new looking.

Why retrain many user to whole new interface in corporate environment?

Have been using windows 8 for several months now and do not miss the start menu one bit, find the new screen exciting and more efficient than the menu. It might have been confusing at first but after awhile with a bit of customisation it is the business. Seek and yee shall find.

what kind of apps are you using mjleprix? I'm most curious, does Metro on Windows 8 have live tiles and does it look nice? Care to share a screenshot of your Metro startmenu?

Except that on a display of about 10inches, is pretty much meaningless.

Please Apple, stop innovating pointless things we will never use in your products.

Except the problem is, Windows has missed the boat for profitability on the mobile phone market. They have had an opportunity FOR YEARS to enter the mobile phone market, but their refusal to dabble in the phone market has lead to the flood and inevitable dominance of the Android phone. Admittedly Apple came a bit late with their iOS too, but pre-2007 there wasn't a great demand for smart phones...

Dismissing for a moment how you have to pay Microsoft for their usage, Android is a rock solid mobile phone OS. Apple too is great, but their lock down and lack of innovation by putting pointless things in most consumers wont use continues to alienate consumers even more, and plus their list of marketing gotchas which means as soon as the next generation of mobile comes out it's pretty much discontinued.

The future is in free software I'm afraid. There is no compelling reason to move to a Windows phone when everything I can do can be done on an Android phone.

You're right on the money. It's astonishing that people are still interested in what Microsoft is putting out, when attention should be fixed on Linux and Mac. If Microsoft don't change their marketing strategy, Windows 8 is going to bomb worse than Vista did, and consumers will refuse to migrate.

For what most people did on their PCs, Windows XP was fine. Windows Vista was dog slow and buggy to hell, but once you got it working it was rock solid. 7 ironed out those problems.

Because they know consumers won't change from using the start menu. The start menu is more than fine - and Microsoft knows it.