Windows 8 - my verdict. - Page 7

Other than the fact that the titlebars are opaque, I really don't see the comparison at all.

The Windows 7 Aero Glass theme, even once you get rid of that awful reflection texture (set it to 0) still looks very dated with the rounded corners, transparencies, gradients, glow effects and blurring.
The transparent theme they used in the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was ok, but I still prefer the new theme.

++1 like for me

I am also comfy with the metro and modern apps

I agree this is probably the easiest way for PC users. Its pretty decent this way.

Well, I went to Costco to buy a laptop without win8, and they had none. I tried to use the win 8 metro interface and literally had no clue how to use it. I build all of my computers (other than laptops), built an unraid server, have EE degrees, and I can't use the interface? What were they thinking???? I immediately went to Newegg and bought a win7 laptop. I simply do not have time, with two small children, to learn another OS and do not want to be made to modify the OS to get it to something that works. I'm holding off until win9.

I can see where the metro interface has great potential for a HT computer. But they got rid of WMC????? I absolutely must have WMC to run my HD homeruns/primes. (And I know I can buy/download WMC, but why, when it comes free with win 7.)

Whoever thought win 8 was a good idea should be fired. It's the most ludicrous idea I've seen from Microsoft, and they have lots of ludicrous ideas (like forcing you to install Bing desktop).

Wow I can't believe people can't spend a half hour to learn Windows 8 interface. On a fresh install of any Windows OS I can spend a half hour setting it up the way i like it.

It takes all of 30 seconds to install Start8 if you don't want to "learn" the new Start Screen and want the old Start Menu back. Just uninstall/ignore the Metro apps if you don't want to use them.

I can't believe that some people have the idea that Windows 8 was "not built for desktop use" just because they introduced the start screen instead of the old start menu.

+1. I tried out Pokki which is nice, although I think I'm going with Start8 now. Really well done app. Also has settings to turn off the Windows 8 hot corners and charms and boot directly to the desktop among other things. It doesn't just replace the start menu, it makes Windows 8 behave EXACTLY like Windows 7. 30-day fully functional trial and $5 to buy it. If you just paid to upgrade to Windows 8 or bought a new computer with Windows 8, I'm pretty sure you can afford $5. Now can we all stop complaining? Yeah sure, it would have been convenient if this were built in, but $5 and it takes about 30 seconds to install. Works perfectly.

I understand tailoring your computing experience to fit your needs. But the energy you guys are expending to go out of your way to get rid of anything Windows 8 related is kind of silly. And you guys are missing out on a lot of functionality by removing Metro apps, let alone getting lots of free apps in the Windows store.

some of the metro apps are really good.

Please make some recommendations, because I haven't found anything worthwhile in the Windows 8 store so far. There haven't been any apps comparable in quality to anything that I have on my iPad, and certainly nothing good enough that I want to dedicate my entire computer screen to it.

And Start8 doesn't remove the ability to access the Start Screen/Metro if you actually do want to use it. I just don't see any reason to yet. (nor do I foresee a reason to)

it's silly to do an apples and oranges comparison with your ipad. If you're using your iPad, stick to it. It's not a contest to pick an app that's good enough to get you to switch to an app on the PC. But if you want to make your PC experience better, why skip the app store especially since a lot of the apps are free and there's a lot of nifty integration like being able to browse deviantART and instantly download to your skydrive.

i'm all for maximizing the experience of every device I have. that's why I don't understand this need to pick a favorite and have this devotion to a single product. That's why I have both Skydrive and Dropbox. Both have their merits and both are free. I like skydrive for its integration in Windows 8 and because it's 25 GB. I like Dropbox because I grew up on it and it's really easy to use.

Just because I like my iPad 2 doesn't mean I don't look for free apps on my Kindle Fire tablet or my Android tablet or my PC.

It's not an "Apples and oranges" comparison at all - Metro Apps are Microsoft's tablet apps. If I'm going to run a tablet app on my desktop, it has to be at least as good as the apps I have on my tablet of choice (the iPad) and good enough to justify taking over my entire screen. Otherwise, I'm just going to use my iPad, which doesn't interrupt what I'm doing on my PC.
I'm generally opposed to running free apps. Most developers want to get paid for their work somehow, so if the app is free, that typically means they either want to advertise to you, are collecting data on you, or are copying data from you. (such as your address book, or other information off your device) Paid apps are generally more polished, and are better supported.

Yeh, and a lot of the Metro apps are really cr*p.

For christ's sake, I am a power user, I need full desktop functionality. I do not want this tablet/phone piece of junk interface getting in my way. I've now doubt Start8/Pokki/Classic shell whatever are great at what they do, but it takes one patch or update from MS to break all of these apps for good, and MS made a big point of saying they will remove all code for the legacy start button support. MS, don't take away the CHOICE of the user to use the O/S as they see fit. If you like Aero Glass, then you should have the option of using it. If you like the old start button, then give us the option to re-enable it.

I have now watched a half dozen people (intelligent, seasoned Windows users I might add), struggle with this new interface using m/k to the point of throwing the mouse down and walking away. Only one person liked it, but they still weren't sure why it was there.

I can't speak for the others, but Start8 does not modify system files, Stardock is a reputable company that has been making and properly supporting products like this for more than a decade, and Microsoft is not in the habit of breaking things like this via system updates. I wouldn't expect anything short of a service pack to potentially break this. Even then, I doubt it would, and I am skeptical about whether or not there will be a service pack for Windows 8 - the way forward seems to be releasing a new OS at a low price every few years rather than long life cycles and service packs.

I really don't see why people would be struggling to use the Start Screen though. Metro apps, maybe, but not the Start Screen if you are just using it to launch desktop applications.


And for what it's worth, I had another look through the store again today. There were a couple of newsreader apps that seemed ok (but nothing as good as Reeder / Flipboard on iOS) however font rendering in Metro apps is terrible! (and ClearType on the desktop isn't great to begin with)
On a high DPI tablet display, it might be acceptable (though most Windows RT tablets are not high DPI yet) but on a desktop monitor or a large television display (most of my computing is now done on a 1080p, 46" Sony LCD) the grayscale font rendering looks really bad.

So unless someone manages to not only build a great RSS reading app (probably about the only thing I would consider using a Metro app for) but uses their own custom font rendering engine in it, I definitely can't see myself using Metro apps any time soon.

Another thing is that Microsoft really wasn't very clear about using the Windows 8 store. When I tried using it, it asked me to log into my Microsoft account, and it turns out that this is only for the store login, it does not turn my offline user account into an online one. (which I wanted to avoid)

Every metro app I've tried looks like ****. Tons of wasted space and awful looking text because Windows can't scale UIs like OSX or Android.

Note: I hate Apple a lot but OSX scales beautifully when zooming on higher resolution displays. Want to run 2560x1600 on a 13 inch screen with readable fonts, no problem, just zoom the OS. Microsoft needs to replicate this ASAP because Windows font and ui scaling is still the same crap it was in Windows XP. I'm ordering an Android Nexus 10 for home theater integration with XBMC.

Is there anything that Start8 can do that Classic Shell cant? Does Start8 also modify the windows explorer the way Classic Shell does? (I like that a lot)

Use StartIsBack. Author put the Windows 7 explorer code back in, and relegated Metro to the background. You boot to the desktop, with a normally functioning Windows 7 Start orb. CTRL+WIN key if you want Metro to come up.

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158666-start-is-back-10-release/

Classic shell does all of that and quite a bit more... It's also free. I also prefer the look of Classic Shell over the traditional Windows 7 Start menu, though both are customizable.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/features.html

Drag and drop to let you organize your applications
Options to show Favorites, expand Control Panel, etc
Shows recently used documents. The number of documents to display is customizable
Translated in 35 languages, including Right-to-left support for Arabic and Hebrew
Does not disable the original start menu in Windows. You can access it by Shift+Click on the start button
Right-click on an item in the menu to delete, rename, sort, or perform other tasks
The search box helps you find your programs without getting in the way of your keyboard shortcuts
Supports jumplists for easy access to recent documents and common tasks
Available for 32 and 64-bit operating systems
Has support for skins, including additional 3rd party skins
Fully customizable in both looks and functionality
Support for Microsoft’s Active Accessibility
Converts the “All Programs” button in the Windows menu into a cascading menu (Vista and Windows 7)
Implements a customizable Start button (Windows 7 and 8)
Can show, search and launch Windows Store apps (Windows 8)
And last but not least – it's FREE!
Edited by Pastuch - 11/9/12 at 8:50am

Sounds good...just presenting another option.

That's not true at all. Metro apps are required to support 100/140/180% scaling, and the desktop supports 100/125/150%, along with the ability to set an arbitrary scale factor. (though arbitrary values have a tendency to look bad)

The issue is that older desktop applications on Windows generally have poor support for scaling.

EDIT: In fact, I have just tried it out (I normally stick to 100% on the desktop) and they have completely changed how older desktop applications are scaled in Windows 8. Previously it would try to scale up all UI elements that were supported (e.g. if an application used the standard way of drawing menus) but elements which were not supported often didn't scale with them if the developer had not considered anything above 100% size, resulting in various UI elements at different sizes within the same window, which could make some applications essentially unusable.

What Windows 8 now does for applications that do not support scaling, is render at 100% and upscale. This avoids breaking the UI of applications, but does mean that it can appear to be soft. This is exactly how Apple handles "non-retina" applications on OS X.

This is actually a massive upgrade over previous versions of Windows if you use anything above 100% size. I'm not sure where you got this idea from, but OS X only supports rendering at 100% and 200% scale factors. Retina-optimized applications are rendered at 200%, and non-retina ones are rendered at 100% and upscaled.

The new Retina MacBook Pros allow you to choose other scale factors for the desktop (e.g. 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 on the 15" model) but the OS is still rendered at 200%, and that image is then downsampled to the screen's native resolution. This gives poor results that are noticeably degraded. The Retina MacBook Pros are no different from other fixed-pixel displays, which require content to be rendered for their native resolution to look good.
This is completely inaccurate. Applications not designed to support scaling understandably look poor (just as they look poor on OS X as well) but support for UI scaling has been much improved since Windows XP.
Classic Shell probably offers more features than Start8, but Start8 requires almost zero configuration and does a better job of replicating the original Windows 7 start menu. (at least compared to the build I tried last)

While I am sure solutions like "Classic Shell" works for people that like to tweak things, and "Start is back" probably works well, I would much rather purchase a solution from a company that has been in the business of building and supporting this type of product for a long time.
Edited by Chronoptimist - 11/9/12 at 10:33am

I'm happy to hear metro apps support scaling but it doesn't change the fact that most of them have huge amounts of wasted space and look very "soft".

Regarding Mac, I must have only been looking at "Retina" compatible apps and I'm certainly no expert on OSX. Android apps scale to pretty much any resolution natively according to a Nexus 10 review I just read.

"What Windows 8 now does for applications that do not support scaling, is render at 100% and upscale. This avoids breaking the UI of applications, but does mean that it can appear to be soft. This is exactly how Apple handles "non-retina" applications on OS X.
This is actually a massive upgrade over previous versions of Windows if you use anything above 100% size."

Great point, thanks for correcting me. I'll give the new scaling a try on my projector tonight. I want to write emails on a 116 inch screen!

I use Freeware applications over purchased ones 99% of the time and I've never had a complaint with most of them. Classic Shell has been around for years.

Metro apps shouldn't be looking soft, as I believe they are required to support 100/140/180% scaling, unlike the desktop where DPI scaling has been optional for years. (and probably still is)

White space (rather than "wasted space" ) is very much an element of design, and one that is key to the Metro UI. I do think it can cause apps to be functionally limited though, and obviously it's up to the developer to implement it well.
Android apps use relative positioning for UI elements, which means that phone apps will scale up to tablet devices in such a way that the UI layout is changed, but they are still functionally a phone app. You still need properly designed tablet apps to take proper advantage of the larger screens, which is something I have found to be very lacking on Android. Most developers seem to think that creating a phone app is good enough.
Depending on what you were using before, the new scaling method may look better or worse.

Some older apps did not properly support UI scaling, but didn't break when you used it, and so they would still appear sharp (text etc. rendered at full resolution) but as previously mentioned, the old way of handling scaling would often break the UI of a number of programs.

The new method of scaling means that all applications should be functional when scaled up, but because they are only being rendered at 100% and scaled up, text will appear to be soft compared to applications which do support scaling correctly. As previously mentioned, this method should mean that all applications will be functional when scaled up now though, and it's exactly what Apple is doing in OS X.
I think freeware on the desktop is rather different from free apps on a curated marketplace like the Windows 8 store or the Apple App store, particularly the Apple store, where developers have to pay a yearly fee. Open source is yet another thing entirely - I have much less concern over using something that is open source and widely used.

I still use the odd freeware/open source application on the desktop, but would still rather pay the developers for their work, and would still prefer not to use free apps on curated marketplaces.
iOS is less of a concern now due to the new privacy controls in iOS 6 which will block apps from accessing your contacts data etc. without your express permission.

As for Classic Shell, it does seem to be a popular option, but as I said, it's not what I would recommend to general users that are complaining about the new Start Screen, simply because there are so many options to be configured, and because (at least in the version I tried) it is not functionally the same as the Windows 7 start screen in all aspects. (unlike Start8)

Quit berating people because the have a different opinion than you do.
Edited by vladd - 11/9/12 at 7:00pm

I've tried it and I don't like it. What I'm upset about isn't just that I don't like the direction their taking. I'm upset because they made these changes not because they feel it's better for desktop users. They made these changes to try and jump start their tablet market share. I keep saying this. Wether you like it or not. Do you think they did this to make it better for desktop users?

Metro's full page Start screen = good for tablets, bad for desktops.

Seriously, it just gets in the way. It's like launching an app all unto itself just to get to my regular desktop applications. It's like Windows Media Center - has great functionality as a "front end" for browsing your media collection, watching TV, etc.. but you wouldn't boot your desktop PC into WMC every time it starts up.

There's nothing wrong with Metro _on a tablet_, but please keep it off my desktop. I don't want, need or care to have dynamic live tiles blinking facetube, twitbook, weather and news updates at me 24/7. If I want to see a Facebook update, there's a website for that. I hate constantly being bombarded with updates and requests.

For the record, I still use Office 2003, Have QuickLaunch enabled on the taskbar instead of those stupid pinned apps and use Classic shell for my programs list. If I want to look at a tablet PC when I sit down at my desktop PC I'll duct tape my PlayBook to my monitor.

Shouldn't your main apps be pinned to the desktop taskbar, thus you never even see the start menu? As for boot up, just click the program you want and the menu vanishes. I can't see a problem here. Tiles can be removed or the live functionality turned off, too.

As I mentioned, I use the QuickLaunch w/ small icons - it takes up less than half the space of a standard Win7 pinned program.

This is why I use Classic Shell:



The WinVista/7 Start Menu sucks for lots of apps like this, Metro Start screen even more.

I also heavily use the desktop for quick access to various files and applications. I don't need a full page start menu getting in the way of this either.

Dear Microsoft: Don't strong-arm users into what you think is best. Let the user choose.

Your missing the point. He should be able to use the desktop as he wants. If he wants to carry on using Quicklaunch, then that's fine. It's not your position to say 'Shouldn't your main apps be pinned to the desktop bar'. Again, it's a simple fact the personalization and configurability options are being taken away. If people don't like Metro, they should have the option not to use it. If people like Aero Glass, then they should have the option to use it. 3rd party apps have always filled a void where the functionality was never in the O/S in the first place, but when MS take this feature away for no good reason (other then 'they know best'), then that's different, as well as annoying and frustrating.

It's also become apparent that 8 has the new 'flattened' look purely because Aero didn't look good or work as well on tablets, so the tablet look wins out on the desktop. It wouldn't have taken a lot to include the Aero Glass theme as an option for people who wanted it, even if it wasn't enabled by default.

I also do not want to be bombarded with information from 'live tiles'. I'm not a social networker, can look out of the window to see what the weather's like, don't trade in stocks 'n shares, and don't use MS apps for my email. I don't store any data in the cloud, and use (desktop) Chrome as my web browser. Trouble is, even MS are now referring to the desktop as 'legacy', which is quite worrying.

Come on, you're being a little harsh on Microsoft. 99 out of 100 network admins surveyed said that the number one feature they wanted in Server 2012 was Metro so that they can play Words With Friends & chat on Facebook much more efficiently. Microsoft really does listen.
Edited by tawd1992 - 11/10/12 at 8:20am

This looks an awful lot like someone that is set in their ways and doesn't want to change, as you are using the old Windows 95-style programs menu, and the Windows 98-style taskbar.
While it does allow you to see more at once, the only time I ever use the "all programs" menu is to either pin an application to my taskbar or the start menu. Anything else gets launched by me hitting the windows key and starting to type its name. (the first few characters is usually enough)
The old Win95 style programs menu also has a significant usability problem: overlapping menus. The new Start Menu expands folders vertically, rather than horizontally on top of other menu items. This is particularly problematic with nested folders.

Unless you are also using Metro apps, the new Start Screen doesn't seem to add any functionality over the Windows 7 Start Menu though, and actually introduces a few regressions.


I completely disagree with you about using QuickLaunch over pinning programs. QuickLaunch is nothing more than a set of shortcuts in the taskbar that you can click on, and is wasted space the majority of the time. When you launch an application with it, you have both the application and QuickLaunch taking up space on the taskbar.

Pinned programs are not only shortcuts that can be clicked on, but unlike QuickLaunch, pinned applications are also used for window management, so the same icon that launches the program is used to manage that program's windows. Pinned icons also take up approximately 1/3 the space of the old Win95-style taskbar items.

[win]+[1-0] will launch any of the first 10 pinned applications immediately, or switch directly to them. I have my web browser set as the second pinned item, so [win]+[2] will launch it, if it is running, it will switch directly to it (rather than cycling through every other open application with [alt]+[tab] ) and repeatedly hitting [win]+[2] will cycle through the open windows/tabs in the browser.

You are also able to pin related items to a pinned application on the desktop. For example, I have about 15 different folders pinned to Windows Explorer, that I can quickly access by right-clicking the pinned icon.
You have the choice to not use Windows 8. That's generally how OS upgrades go.
You don't see Apple giving options to people who liked the old Brushed Metal interface, hate the new Mission Control compared to Expose and Spaces, letting you go back to the old 10.4 Spotlight UI etc.
Actually, I think it's far more reasonable to say that the Metro design language is not exclusive to "Metro Apps" and that Microsoft has designed a cohesive look to the UI whether you are on the desktop or using Metro apps.

Aero Glass sticks out like a sore thumb when compared with the other UI changes in Windows 8.

I like pinning my most used apps to the Start Screen.
I can't believe people are throwing a fit about the half a second it takes to click on the Desktop Icon pinned to the Start Screen.