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I agree absolutely - the new UI has been forced down peoples necks. I like the Metro UI on a phone. I'm pretty sure it would be OK on a tablet, but on a desktop (let alone a server) its bat-sh*t insane.
I use my PC a lot for musical endeavours, and me and my son use it for gaming - the improved memory usage and disk performance pay for itself in these areas. For many people, I can see the upgrade doesn't make so much sense. My personal take is that it's a better O/S in spite of the GUI "improvements", not because of them.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Interesting. Anecdotal, I know, but I'm the exact opposite:
- Stood in line to purchase Win 95 at midnight.
- Purchased 98 within the first week.
- Switched to 2000 instead of ME, so dodged that bullet.
- Purchased XP within the first week.
- Installed Vista (via MSDN) the day the disc was delivered.
- Installed 7 (via MSDN) the day it was available for download.
Have zero interest in 8. Tried it several times on other people's machines, so I'm not basing this off of pure speculation. I prefer skeumorphism and discoverable UIs.
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The UI needs hard core work, and it not the reason why 8 is amazing.
A lot of people will get to see the potential of the operating system is by using Xbox One, which uses Windows RT as the core.
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So the UI needs hard core work, and is not the reason 8 is amazing, but people will see the potential from XBox One because of the new UI. That makes no sense at all.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Did you know one of the reasons why a complier is amazing, is it's ability to grasp meaning from mistakes, and a real lousy complier is one that requires the code syntax to be prefect.
So can you grasp meaning from the sentence or no?
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No. But maybe that's because I'm a lousy complier. 
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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The main design rule of Metro is there is no chrome.
So the UI could be a game console such as Xbox, or it can be a phone such as the new windows phone 8.1 (which was Silverlight before).
With enough experience it could probably mock the desktop.
There is nothing to the UI of Metro so it can be anything that exists and not have a overhead presence to it.
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DOS: Ahh, the good old days... I spent so much time messing around in QBasic and TurboC... And playing Scorched Earth.
Windows 3.11: So insecure that when they put a computer lab in my high school, I hacked it in five minutes so I could play Minesweeper (Teaches them to lock out the games!)
Windows 95: Had to set up a software firewall just so the script kiddies on IRC couldn't drop an ICMP on 139 to BSOD me. On the other hand, having that in place made it REALLY fun to taunt those script kiddies.
Windows 98: Fixed most of the problems with Windows 95, and was great as long as you turned off that crap on the desktop.
Windows Me: Yes, I actually had this. This was before I started buying/building my own machines. Wow... So bad... So so bad...
Windows XP: Finally, something that worked! Well, after a service pack or two... But hey, it was a lot more stable than WinMe!
Windows Vista: I know... I know... But I got a REALLY good deal on a machine about six months before Windows 7 came out. It came with a free upgrade, so I just didn't actually commit to the new machine (Stuck with my old XP box) until I got the upgrade.
Windows 7: Better than XP... Best one yet. No complaints... Well, not many... I mean, my machine doesn't always post, and sometimes it locks up hard or bluescreens, but I'm pretty sure it's a hardware issue.
Windows 8: Everyone keeps telling me, "Just download ____ to fix the start menu and it's great!" But if you have to get third-party add-ons just to make it usable, doesn't that mean it's a failure? Thanks, but I'll wait for Windows 9 and hope it sucks less than 8... And I wish they'd hurry up, because I'm in the mood to buy a new computer.
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Windows 8 is a huge change on how things are done, and if you don't change to the new way of doing things then you will have a uphill battle to do all the tricks you are used to.
All because you did not adapt to the new way of doing something does not make the concept a failure.
Windows Metro is the code basis for both Xbox One and Windows Phone, the future of the company is in these two technologies, Windows 8 is the first Desktop OS to integrate with that code basis. The coding abilities are the strong point in 8 and is what should shine.
Windows OneCore will be more of that dream to have one code structure across all devices, sadly the desktop and the old way of doing things does not fit in this new idea.
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ColborneGreg wrote: Windows 8 is a huge change on how things are done
And it's clearly a change that desktop uses don't want. Looks great for tablets, but I don't want tiles on my desktop.
Now if the innards are shared, that's just fine. Common code on that level is usually a good thing, and should make it more stable and compatible. But their window manager, to speak of it in *NIX terms, leaves something to be desired.
Tiles are for tablets, windows are for desktops. Putting a few live tiles into the start menu, which they seem to be doing in the next version, is cool. I'm good with that. But making me switch my ENTIRE screen to a bunch of tiles just to launch an application? Epic fail.
I know you're going to talk about how important the inner parts are... But when I get home from work, all I want to do is check my e-mail, browse the web, and play games... Sometimes I'll pop into LibreOffice or mess around with other things. I don't care about the innards. They need to JUST WORK. I care about the GUI, and tiles are pointless when I have a mouse and keyboard.
And on that note, when I'm AT work, I don't want tiles there either. Fortunately, my company just recently upgraded to Win7, so I don't see them upgrading again anytime soon. Hell, I'm stuck developing on VS2010... No async/await for me 
So... Windows 8... Seen it. Not buying it.
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I get them from the majority of computer people that have a history with computers and are engrained in a way of doing things as you pointed out, which is fine, normal, and because of that changing to Windows 8 is not good; but for anyone that is not a computer geek, they most of the time are taken back and have bad things to say about Windows 8, but every single one of them that I have coached has come to realise why things are done the way their are done in Windows 8, and to get rid of Metro would be to go backwards for them.
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That quick autocomplete box at the bottom of the Start Menu was an AMAZING addition to Win7... No more searching through that All Programs tree to find some obscure thing buried among five hundred other useless applications. Huge step forward.
Being able to hit the start key, type a few letters, and hit enter to bring up an accessory like Calculator or Regedit or Notepad, without even touching the mouse or taking my eyes off what I'm doing... Huge step forward.
Opening up a full-screen mess of live tiles every time I want to launch an application that I don't use often enough to put on my taskbar? Huge step backward.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/windows-9-release-date-beta-preview-start-menu-screenshots[^] <-- That looks like a good start menu. That's what I'm waiting for.
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In windows 8 - you just start typing from the start menu.
You can still press the start key and just start typing.
There is also a swipe bar on the right; move your mouse to the top right or bottom right, then move your mouse up or down to activate the Charms bar.
You can click the search charm to locate a program you want.
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You missed the part about the entire screen switching to a mess of tiles while I'm trying to read something.
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That's why I mentioned the charms bar which does not take away from your experience.
The search result will show on the flyout pane on the right, so you can use that application with ease.
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So, still something that requires me to divert my attention away from whatever I'm doing...
Why does Microsoft suddenly hate keyboards?
(Keyboard + Muscle Memory) > (Mouse + Hunting for crap on a charms bar)
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That full screen start menu is sometimes annoying
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That full screen start menu is sometimes annoying
FTFY
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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The only time it is annoying is when I want it to show in the portion of the screen absent of a metro app instead of taking total control of the screen.
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So... your muscle memory can't remember winKey + C?
there's a keyboard shortcut for everything, except shutting down the device, that's still a pain 
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I'm not sure, but doesn't that go back to the start page? (I have win 7 at work, so I can't try it)
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That has the same result in every version of windows.
Whatever app has the focus Alt-F4 will close.
If the desktop has focus or no apps are running pressing alt-f4 will shut the machine down
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failure1:
to "type from the start menu" you have to make it active first, hiding your application you have been working with. In W7 search, I don't have to switch to desktop, and can see the last active window I have been working with, helping to remind me what I was searching for. (and yes, that's sometimes quite helpful, when I don't exactly remember how the file is named that I'm looking for.
failure 2:
having a "swipe bar" on the desktop. Or even a tablet, for that matter. There's more than aenough screen estate to provide actionable UI elements for relevant system functions, e. g. on the task bar. There's no need nor reason to add a popup sidebar that just gets in the way more often than not.
failure 3:
Having to move your mouse to a far corner just to show a relevant function takes a lot more effort and energy than simply pressing the windows button to open the start menu.
failure 4:
the default search in W8 is searching for apps. That's about the least useful kind of search I can think of: when I search for something on my local system, it is a data file, 99% of the time!
failure 5:
W8 search will not find most data files, even if you tell it to go looking for something different than apps. W7 search finds files, applications, settings, and even emails, no problem! I've seen lots of complaints about that, and little to no solution offered besides switching to another search tool, or file search in Windows Explorer.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Failure 1 can be avoided by using the charms bar and then the search shows on top of the desktop
Short-cut Windows-Logo-Key + S
Failure 2 there is no chrome is important, otherwise the Metro UI would not be able to have its own look on Windows Phone, its own look on Xbox and still function well on the Desktop while only being one code set.
Failure 3 Learn the short cuts that start with the Windows-Logo-Key
Failure 4 update to windows 8.1 that searches everywhere
Failure 5 Update to Windows 8.1
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