Upgrading to windows 8

[downbeatplumb]

Apparently windows 8 works best on touch screen machines but sucks balls on normal pcs.

[Autumnlicious]

I don't know if Microsoft has backed down on preventing you from running unsigned applications on your ARM device.

If not, then Win8 is DOA for me.

I'll keep my Win7.

[Nine]

Apparently windows 8 works best on touch screen machines but sucks balls on normal pcs.

I eat to much while I use my PC to be using a touch screen lol. Maybe if I could use kinect with it lol.

[Jackalope]

I don't know if Microsoft has backed down on preventing you from running unsigned applications on your ARM device.

If not, then Win8 is DOA for me.

I'll keep my Win7.

That and the godawful oversimplified UI.

[Darwinian]

I tried the beta of Win 8 and it was quite simply HORRIBLE!

[zebo-the-fat]

Never used it, the pictures of the UI look like something designed for a 3 year old!
It may be ok on a fondle slab, but not with a keyboard & mouse.

If your Windoze 7 works ok don't change it!

[Jackalope]

Got my hands on an evaluation copy of Win 8 (you can too, see inside).

For the TL;DR folks: two entirely different UI paradigms, badly integrated.

Not adopting this any time soon, see below the fold for why.

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For those that aren't aware, you can download an evaluation copy of Windows 8 Enterprise that has a license valid for 90 days.

So, I've heard many negative things about Windows 8, but had not tried it myself yet. I downloaded the evalation version from the above link and installed it into a VirtualBox VM to try it out.

The most immediate difference I note is that after logging in, I'm greeted by a visually unappealing screen with several large (VERY large, enormous on a 24" screen) panels/icons to start various bundled apps. Apparently, this is the "Metro" UI I've heard so much about.

Yuck. Aside from being a completely different UI paradigm than previous versions of windows, I find Metro to be horribly visually unappealing. Something to get used to, I suppose.

Clicking most of them launches a full-screen application without window decorations or controls (hell, without a window at all). I discover that I can return to the Metro launch screen (or whatever it's called) with the windows key, and that Alt-Tab works as expected to switch between full-screen apps.

From the Metro launcher, I find that I can launch a familiar-looking desktop - minus the Start button (the Metro launcher replaces Start). I'm accustomed to working on the Windows desktop, so perhaps in 8 it can be reconfigured so that my current workflows will still work? I notice that the full-screen apps I launched from Metro do not appear on my taskbar, nor is there any apparent way to pin an app to the desktop taskbar.

Looks like Microsoft wants to force me to use the Metro launcher whether I want to or not. Wait... Can I even launch a windowed app from Metro and use it within the desktop? There's no apparent way to do it. (* Note, I discover later how to do this.)

Full screen apps make sense on handheld devices. On a device with a large screen and traditional input devices, not so much. Can you drag and drop between full screen apps? No. Keep two on-screen at the same time? No. It appears that at least some Metro-enabled full-screen apps (e.g. Internet Explorer) can switch(*) between full-screen Metro mode and the more familiar windowed desktop mode - but not all of them can, and for those that can, the widget for doing so it not readily visible. (* In reality, it does not SWITCH the application, it launches a new one in a window).

Frankly, the integration between full-screen Metro-enabled apps and traditional windowed desktop apps appears to suck, and suck hard.

Back to the Metro launcher. As I said, there are a few apps visible. Where are the rest? Where is the control panel? Notepad? Calculator? Media Player? Right-clicking a blank area in the Metro launcher opens up the Apps screen, where my installed apps are displayed. (I note that once I discovered this screen, I found it was possible to pin a traditional desktop app to the desktop taskbar. Small win. You can't pin a full-screen Metro app to the taskbar, however.)

Meh. I'm done messing around with this for today. The integration between Metro and the desktop feels extremely clumsy to me, and the Metro launcher (which you apparently cannot disable and are forced to use) seems to be a very inefficient interface for a laptop or PC. I'm not a UI designer, but it seems like a very bad design decision for a UI to force users to adapt to it, rather than the UI designed to accomodate the user's workflow. For those of us that have been using Windows for decades, Metro is a huge disruption to that workflow - and it doesn't appear to be customizable to feel more like the pre-8 UI experience. It may be possible with third party tools. One thing for certain - I won't be adopting this at work any time soon.

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[Darkstar]

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

[Angrboda]

[Darkstar]