I don't want a touch interface on my desktop. simple as that.

SuperT: I don't want a touch interface on my desktop. simple as that.

Basically this. I've tried it in VMs, I tried it as my primary desktop, and the "modern interface" just ends up getting in the way most of the time. As it has been said repeatedly, for touch screens it's great. Hell, even a decent multitouch trackpad it's alright. But for a kb/mouse driven UI it's irritating at best.

Rwa2play: SuperT: I don't want a touch interface on my desktop. simple as that.

This. Complete fail on Microsoft's part trying to force people into something instead of letting them make the choice for themselves.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

Yesterday I was handed an HP laptop and was asked to "fix it".

Turned out to the be the first Windows 8 experience I've had.

As a Mac guy I get the sense of the idea Microsoft has with this and I like what they think they want to do, but the execution of how to get there... ugh.

It took me about 10 seconds to find Desktop, it took me another 10 seconds to discover that they've removed Control Panel and everything else useful from Desktop. 5 minutes later I found out how to turn on the "Administration Tiles" on the main Metro screen

The scrolling is phone-like, the icons are terrible, the menus are too sparse, it's just too disjointed.

I went to uninstall Norton so I could turn Windows Defender on (the renamed MSE), but I couldn't find Windows Defender anywhere. I found the Search Charm, typed in Windows Defender, first result came up, clicked it, error message telling me that something else was already the default antivirus and I needed to go disable that first in the Security Center. Of course Windows didn't offer to link me to the Security Center, I had to spend another 5 minutes figuring out how to dig that up.

It feels like everything I really need is intentionally buried behind 5 layers of searching crap, while the crap I don't need has gigantic animated tiles for quick access. It's like running MS-DOS and not being able to type "dir".

Don't worry. Shortly an officially santioned Microsoft White Knight will be here to assure us all of how stupid we all are for disliking the metro interface because the desktop still exists and you can pull up a stunted version of the control panel and administrative tools by moving your mouse to the corner of the screen and right-clicking the invisible, poorly-documented button for it.

/ that said, getting your tech news from The Register is about as bright as getting your political news from Fox News Channel....
// if you must use Windows 8, learn all the .msc files, a couple useful Powershell commands and all the keyboard shortcuts
/// then you can be almost as productive as you were on Windows 7, and for only the small cost of an upgrade!

It's awesome on tablets but junk on desktops. Desktop option is fine, seems a little faster to me actually, but it's dumb that it's not the default. Metro or whatever should be a feature, not the whole thing.

Blame the victims Microsoft. Classy!

I don't mind Windows 8 once you banish the start screen and install classic shell it's fine. Why MS couldn't see that touch-screen consumer tablets vs. corporate desktops have very different needs is beyond me.

Windows 8RT has also confused the market. The inclusion of the app-less traditional desktop has been uber confusing for the non-tech savvy. they've already sullied the brand with lots of frustrated consumers who wanted to run traditional desktop apps on their ARM tablets. Had the released the Surface Pro to begin with they may have gained some traction.

I predict that Microsoft will double down on the stupid in this case, and REQUIRE everyone to use Metro on future versions of Windows.

It's going to suck.

Now is the time for some competing operating system to start getting ready to take MS down.

Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

doczoidberg: I predict that Microsoft will double down on the stupid in this case, and REQUIRE everyone to use Metro on future versions of Windows.

It's going to suck.

Now is the time for some competing operating system to start getting ready to take MS down.

Isn't this where some Linux weenie jumps in and points out that THIS is the year of Linux and how much better it is because open and potato?

/Linux is Ok
//MacOS is my thing
///Hates Winblows in any form

oh, and using the 'metro' interface in server 2012. that was just pure awesome, because as awesome as a tablet interface is on a regular desktop, having it in a server UI was even more awesome.

narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

That number counts the licenses sold to manufactures to put onto new products. The number that were actually sold to end users has nothing to do with that.

narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

Sold to OEMs to install on new machines. How many of those are still sitting on the store shelf gathering dust? How many that were sold were wiped and had Windows 7 installed?

ampoliros: narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

That number counts the licenses sold to manufactures to put onto new products. The number that were actually sold to end users has nothing to do with that.

Yeah, because it's not like OSX comes preloaded on a Mac or anything.

It's ok but I do have a few WTF nits:

1) So you can adjust the color of windows borders... but you can't adjust the color of window border text. Want a dark color? Well you won't be able to read the black text in the window border.
2) Why can't I natively create tiles for the start screen? Seriously. Just create a new square, pick an image, and choose a program from a list. Nope, gotta be one of a few apps and even then you can't customize the tile. You have to use a 3rd party program to help you do this. It's just shortcuts on a screen. Seriously, Packard Bell used something similar back in the 386 days and they gave you actual customizations to work with.

And in classic MS form they don't let you pick the background you want for something without a registry hack, this time it's the start screen. Why is dropping a user selected image into the background such a hard thing. Gotta be one of 8 presets. I guess they do that to preserve resources on a cellphone, but I'm using a desktop. They really should have made a "separate but equal" OS for both a desktop and a cellphone.

Just a few nits that make me scratch my head. The two I mentioned above were literally the first two things I tried after moving to Windows 8. How did that get past any usability test... or was all testing performed on phones?

SuperT: I don't want a touch interface on my desktop. simple as that.

this, I looked into it, but didn't seem to mouse friendly. plus I like windows 7

narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

two points

First, a lot of the 'sold' licenses were license pre-buys by the big OEMs. They might not get installed on a real computer until next Xmas.

Second, Win8 is the default OS for most computers now. Most people that buy PCs just buy what is on the shelf. So they are hardly 'choosing' Win8, they are just getting a new computer and Win8 happens to be on it.

error 303: It's awesome on tablets but junk on desktops. Desktop option is fine, seems a little faster to me actually, but it's dumb that it's not the default. Metro or whatever should be a feature, not the whole thing.

I think the idea is to try and force all new apps to be Modern UI so the same app works on Windows, Tablet, Mobile without having to build different versions of an app for each one, whereas if they made it a feature people would mostly keep making desktop apps, which would mean the tablet/mobile app "ecosystem" wouldn't build as fast. So basically they are trying to leverage their perceived bulletproof dominance of the desktop market to boost their chances of being successful in the tablet and mobile realms, thinking that there is little risk of losing desktop users to Mac/Linux no matter how much annoyance and confusion trying to fasttrack the switch.

ampoliros: That number counts the licenses sold to manufactures to put onto new products. The number that were actually sold to end users has nothing to do with that.

Nor does it track people who buy OEM Windows 8 machines and downgrade them to Windows 7.

doczoidberg: Now is the time for some competing operating system to start getting ready to take MS down.

And just like the Vista days, we have the ideal time when Apple should release their OS to Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, and Acer. They wouldn't get much of the commercial market, but would easily get 25-50% of home PC buyers to order OSX instead of Windows 8.

But they won't. I swear, it's like they want money - just not all of it.

clkeagle: But they won't. I swear, it's like they want money - just not all of it.

They really don't make much money on OS X. It's been said repeatedly before, but Apple is a hardware company. iTunes, app stores, and OS X contribute very little to their bottom line.

narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold.

So? Why do I care how many licenses are available to the likes of Dell and Acer and Lenovo? Got a relevant number like how many copies are actually in the hands of end users or just inconsequential bullshiat about how many available licenses are sitting around in hardware manufacturer databases?

I wonder how many buyers of new PCs, blindsided by Windows 8 and having to relearn simple tasks, have returned the PCs for replacement with Windows 7 machines.

Hot, unlike Windows 8 sales.

Cythraul: That, and I hate the aesthetics in some of these design choices these days. Side by side four sided geometric shapes. Big bold solid colors. Striking fonts.

It makes perfect sense on a smaller device where you need that sort of distinction. It's a lot easier to get used to hitting a big tile of a certain color on a certain region of your screen than try to read the smaller text on the tile to see its name.

Not so sensible on a 19" monitor with plenty of real-estate, though. Then it just looks like a digital speak and spell.

dbirchall: narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

FTFA:Microsoft did say that the figure of 60 million could be attributed to upgrades and sales to manufacturers - so not sales of actual PCs to the end user.

I suspect the breakdown is something like this:
00.1% - people actually buying Windows 8 by itself, to upgrade from something else.
24.9% - people buying new machines and having no choice but Windows 8.
75.0% - "sold" to distributors/retailers, so now it's their problem, not ours.

It was $40 and I had XP.

netweavr: dbirchall: narkor: Lets see. 60 million licenses sold. That's 70% of the entire Mac OSX base. Keep submitting these stories fanboys!

FTFA:Microsoft did say that the figure of 60 million could be attributed to upgrades and sales to manufacturers - so not sales of actual PCs to the end user.

I suspect the breakdown is something like this:
00.1% - people actually buying Windows 8 by itself, to upgrade from something else.
24.9% - people buying new machines and having no choice but Windows 8.
75.0% - "sold" to distributors/retailers, so now it's their problem, not ours.

It was $40 and I had XP.

I thought about getting it for my wife's XP machine, but I like being married to her.

Abe Vigoda's Ghost: Apple is a hardware company. They don't want a bunch of Apple clones around. They tried that once, it failed miserably.

True, but that was a very different time.

MightyPez: They really don't make much money on OS X. It's been said repeatedly before, but Apple is a hardware company. iTunes, app stores, and OS X contribute very little to their bottom line.

But wouldn't offering OSX on third-party equipment these days be a good gateway for selling their more profitable items? If there's one thing Apple does well - it's marketing. They could easily convince PC buyers that getting a computer with OSX will somehow enhance their iPad/iPod/iPhone/AppleTV experiences. The goal wouldn't be to make money through the sales of those Dell/Asus/whatever PCs, but to convince people (who were going to buy a Dell/Asus/whatever no matter what OS it comes with) that they really need that iPad/iPod/AppleTV in their homes. And when that Asus OSX laptop customer needs a new desktop (or conversely, that HP OSX desktop customer wants a new laptop) - they might choose an Apple desktop/laptop based on the OSX experiences and the comparison of the build quality or features.

If they would have so little to gain from the additional OSX licensing, wouldn't that imply that they would have little to lose by trying it out?

theurge14: Yesterday I was handed an HP laptop and was asked to "fix it".

Turned out to the be the first Windows 8 experience I've had.

As a Mac guy I get the sense of the idea Microsoft has with this and I like what they think they want to do, but the execution of how to get there... ugh.

It took me about 10 seconds to find Desktop, it took me another 10 seconds to discover that they've removed Control Panel and everything else useful from Desktop. 5 minutes later I found out how to turn on the "Administration Tiles" on the main Metro screen

The scrolling is phone-like, the icons are terrible, the menus are too sparse, it's just too disjointed.

I went to uninstall Norton so I could turn Windows Defender on (the renamed MSE), but I couldn't find Windows Defender anywhere. I found the Search Charm, typed in Windows Defender, first result came up, clicked it, error message telling me that something else was already the default antivirus and I needed to go disable that first in the Security Center. Of course Windows didn't offer to link me to the Security Center, I had to spend another 5 minutes figuring out how to dig that up.

It feels like everything I really need is intentionally buried behind 5 layers of searching crap, while the crap I don't need has gigantic animated tiles for quick access. It's like running MS-DOS and not being able to type "dir".

I have no farking clue what you are trying to prove here. That a person who uses a totally different OS took less than ten minutes to do something on a OS he has not used ever
/Protip you can get to the control panel from the desktop

In the left corner where the Metro/Start icon pop up just right click on it

doczoidberg: I predict that Microsoft will double down on the stupid in this case, and REQUIRE everyone to use Metro on future versions of Windows.

Microsoft has already told people with NDAs that they are doubling down on Metro for Windows Blue. It's not that way.

'Metro only' Windows was already released as the ARM version of Windows 8, called WinRT.  That paradigm is not being propagated to Wintel anytime soon.

I placed an order for a Lenovo Yoga 13 during Thanksgiving week and first received it after the beginning of the new year. Prior to it having Windows 8, the shipping time was under 2 weeks. Similar "long order/short supply" stories have been circling about other laptop manufacturers after they started shipping Windows 8. I would agree with MS that if I would have had a Windows 7 option shipping immediately, I would not have gone with Windows 8. However, this should no longer be the problem as most manufacturers should be meeting quantity demand before the end of the quarter. When that happens, MS will have to come up with a fresh excuse for poor sales.

clkeagle: But wouldn't offering OSX on third-party equipment these days be a good gateway for selling their more profitable items? If there's one thing Apple does well - it's marketing. They could easily convince PC buyers that getting a computer with OSX will somehow enhance their iPad/iPod/iPhone/AppleTV experiences. The goal wouldn't be to make money through the sales of those Dell/Asus/whatever PCs, but to convince people (who were going to buy a Dell/Asus/whatever no matter what OS it comes with) that they really need that iPad/iPod/AppleTV in their homes. And when that Asus OSX laptop customer needs a new desktop (or conversely, that HP OSX desktop customer wants a new laptop) - they might choose an Apple desktop/laptop based on the OSX experiences and the comparison of the build quality or features.

Because they would need to expand their mostly lean OS X development into a much larger department to accomodate the broader hardware base. There is no real benefit to getting more bloated to accomodate a market that may not accept them for the off chance someone will buy their hardware.

OS X is kept lean and functional because they cater to a very narrow selection of hardware. Apple has made it very clear they build computers that are more appliance than traditional desktop, and it makes them a lot of money.

Even if they were to suddenly decide to enter the OS business, they would probably need to increase licensing costs and manage end user licensing a lot more. As it stands Apple is fairly apathetic about people pirating OS X and they even allow a single purchase to be installed several times. But with a larger dev team the price of OS X wouldn't stay at $20.

I just purchased a Dell Optiplex for a professor here at work and it came with Windows 8. It took a little bit of work but I got it to behave pretty much like Windows 7. The only thing I can't do is get Kaspersky working with it, but that's fine and I can use Defender for now.

With a little bit of work, a few tweaks, a third party program or two and it works just fine. I understand where the not technical people would have a problem with it, but I do IT work and familiar with work arounds and tweaks.

And forty dollars for Windows 8 sounds even better than the fifty dollars I paid for Windows 7 pro.

As someone who has a touchscreen desktop (I got an All-In-One a while ago, before it was cool... what's that? It still isn't? Well damn.) and paid the $40 to upgrade the day it came out (fark you, don't give me that look!) I have to say that this is objectively shiattier than Windows 7 in almost every way. And I have a touch screen desktop! Look, I clearly have a history of making stupid purchases (I bought a Xoom at full price when it came out, had a virtual boy once when I was a kid, a Sega 32x, etc.) but I almost feel worse about this one. Every time I boot up I immediately click (notice I didn't say touch) the tile for the desktop then go about my business using it as a Windows 7 PC without a start button. I know there's a way to have it boot up to the desktop but I never do it hoping that one day I'll want to use the tiles and corny bullshiat. I don't. It has added nothing to my experience. Not a thing. I basically gave Mircosoft $40 to make Windows 7 more of a hassle to navigate. Also, I had to learn how to bury my porn videos again, so that's always fun. In conclusion, fark Windows 8, I hope Steve Ballmer gets cancer in his asshole.