you can start up on the desktop by putting a shortcut to explorer.exe in the startup folder. if you pause a few seconds on the login screen at bootup, you won't even see the metro ui flash by - until you have to use an 'app'. the new explorer ribbon is quite useful. the default simple theme is fine. having to switch to the metro desktop to access the start menu is a waste of keystrokes and obnoxious. forcing new apps to use the metro interface is obnoxious. the metro interface might be good for touchscreens or portable devices like phones - but on my computer I want to use a keyboard and a pointing device other than a touchscreen because I use it to work. the reboot-on-boot sequence seems to add security but slows down the boot process and i'm sure smart and determined people can find a way around this. my verdict: MS has advanced some of the core functionality of win7 but screwed it all up by forcing the metro UI and focusing on dumbing things down. I am concerned that the base functionality of work applications can now be better supported on a mac/osx. I would not be surprised to see large companies moving in that direction! on my personal laptop - i'll continue with win7 until there's either a solid way to avoid the whole metro u, or until I give up and go osx.
Yes,the W8RP is simple and beautiful but cannot be played with normal resolution on my laptop...only an external monitor...
What sucks for me, is that ms will remove Transparent from Areo. The modify Areo looks very nice on the Preview Release Why can't they keep it, just as a non default theme?
Whyyyy?? You've 25 Different Color with 6 Different Styles + Metro Menu Become Friendly with New Colors and Apps why leave alllllllll this and back to Old Basic Start Menu???
If there was a choice without third party apps - OK, one would understand it, as new HW is coming etc. But the forcing [of all into something they (m$) envisaged] sucks big m$ time, as always...
For me metro is not the problem, its the other stuff they did like eliminating aero and what they have done with the Windows Media Center
Hello everyone, I am using Windows since Windows 95. I remember visual changes from OS to OS as well as core changes. In my view, Windows 8 is an amazing connected/cloud OS. It is fast, solid and secure (based on Windows 7), have new Metro GUI+Apps. As a whole, it offers connected experience. I am using it since DP. RP is stable and have beautiful new Aero theme (I wish I can have it in RTM). Overall my experience: -Aesthetically beautiful and integrated social experience -Ultra fast and stable -Beautiful and easy to use Ribbon Windows Explorer -Wide compatibility with existing desktop applications, especially browsers, office, multimedia (codecs), productivity and educational software -Better power management, especially sleep and fast resume. I am experiencing longer battery timing with it -Beautifully connected applications, let me share things with ease, always up-to-date mailbox (no need to open things in browser), skydrive, mail, picture, calender, news, metro IE, everything is connected and easy to share/mail/reply. Amazing experience here especially Metro IE is fast (and secure too due to limited flash functionality and no plugin) -Video and Music apps are great and support multimedia keyboard. Good experience with these except very few glitches -Store offered me lot of metro applications free I am enjoying new games and applications -Good driver support (not to mention ultra fast driver installation of new hardware). OEMs and Microsoft need to improve it further Cons: -No DVD support. Not everyone has 10 Mbps connection for streaming and other online video sources. We here mostly rely on DVDs and WMP was good player compared to free media players due to SRS integrated technology -Integrated social experience means: Feds can login as Admin and can have all your emails, contacts, social info (facebook/twitter), photos, friends and other personal information with ease, as everything is unencrypted and openly available (we will see easy to use software to do this job soon) -Use of Bitlocker/TrueCrypt is now essential to protect our privacy, especially against theft, as all our info is now available at single place in easy to read form. Encryption will help to secure it but at the cost of performance loss (~ 20%), bad especially for notebook users as most of notebook hard drives are still 5400 RPM -Aero. I will miss current RP aero theme forever, if Microsoft decided to remove it -No start menu. Can be compensated by alternate options like Classic Start Menu Nothing else is here coz Microsoft Windows 8 is potentially great connected OS. The overall experience here is WOW !!!
....and this is where m$ lost me. I prefer my privacy over this BS gov't lousy excuse to go over my stuff
Yesterday i installed release preview. Im loving it its very fast, startup-shutdown is soo fast, no driver problems,all of my programs are working fine, all my games are working, metro is awesome, those who are talking abt bringing the startmenu back---> oh man the metro startmenu is 100 times better than the old startmenu, master it then u will love it!! full integration with live id, facebook, sky drive, mail are good memory usage is very less, in my desktop it uses 350-400MB less RAM than win7 the ribbon the task manager the new file management, copy paste etc., are all awesome all the metro apps are working,syncing well, it will be awesome when more apps are available.. and i feel sry for microsoft and win8 haters
100 times better??? It covers taskbar, you loose sight of every single useful info you have on it, there are a lot unuseful space on start screen, background is not fully customizable, color tiles are not customizable neither related to desktop theme, (it kills your eyes, it is a mess of not mixable colors) automatic grouping of the programs do not work, install office professional, you'll find a tons of tilles messing up programs you really need(this in 7 start menu is automatic) You call this 100 times better??? you can be used of it of course, IT DOES NOT MEAN TO BE BETTER!!!
M$ is not going to do that. Just use Windows 7 and forget this piece of mangled code called Windows 8 if you want the start menu. Metro really sucks.
windows 8 isn't so bad, got it so it boots straight to desktop and its fine so long as I can avoid the horror of the metro start screen.