I just think it depends on weather you can deal with change or not. I myself don't mind change at all and usually like new things. I don't mind the start screen or the Modern UI. It has a lot of potential. What I don't like is how rushed it feels. It feels like everything just got thrown together without taking into consideration where it really should be.

Sadly it seems like both Microsoft and Apple have done this lately on their new OS's (both mobile and desktop).

It isn't as easy when you consider NT and 2000 actually come from a separate branch (they got unified back with XP, which I remember caused a lot of uproar back then since XP wasn't anywhere as good running DOS programs as 95 and 98 were).

This highlights some of my amusement about the dislike of Win8; when XP first came out it was rounded on for not being as good as 98 in some cases and for being too colourful and dumbed down when compared to Win2k; between the massive 'start' button and the colour scheme people took the 'we will not upgrade from Win98/2k!' stance! (I stayed with Win2k for a long time, but that was in part pragmatic as Win2K served my needs and part because I didn't like the colour scheme, never did).

Vista then comes out and XP is suddenly 'the best OS MS have ever done!' and everything was ruined and the sky was falling and the like. Win7 appeared with some fixes but, importantly, mature drivers around and suddenly it is hailed by some as 'the best OS MS have ever done!' - some continue to hang stubbornly onto XP of course but in more cases some cosmetic changes and some minor fixes was all that was required to make people happy.

Heck, when Win95 was released the start menu itself wasn't met with universal acceptance either as it seemed alien to so many yet 17 years on people are crying about a change to the very same.

People are fickle; the UI will evolve and issues will get ironed out as wider usability is taken into account and when the next change comes along people will cry about that as well.

the ad is a good ideea but the new ui and the start button removal sucks.Why in hell would you remove the start button and put a damn ui that ocuppies the whole screen instead of it?<br />

What do you want from the start button/desktop that you can't do now?

so i've been helping my grandfather with his windows 8 laptop he got a couple days ago, and it's really making me want to upgrade, the metro isn't nearly as bad as i thought it was going to be. and desktop mode is a breeze to get into. seems they've stepped up the search functionality as well to be much quicker(although it's a brand new laptop, so can't really say much on the front.)

I think it's defiantly made me want to hop onto the bandwagon much more quickly now.

I think that in the case of XP the main issue was that a lot of games were still in DOS and XP didn't really like to play nice with them unless they stuck to some common features. Heck, back then I didn't want to move to XP (and stuck to 98) because there was one program I had that wouldn't work there at all.

Well, since this keeps getting bumped anyway, I might as well ask: I can get a free upgrade to Windows 8 (and possibly the full, non-upgrade version too; I'm not entirely sure) and I'm wondering if it's worth doing now. I am using a Macbook Pro with retina so I am somewhat concerned about compatibility issues, but as long as the display drivers work and I can run all of the programs I use I am inclined to get it. Thoughts?

Well, since this keeps getting bumped anyway, I might as well ask: I can get a free upgrade to Windows 8 (and possibly the full, non-upgrade version too; I'm not entirely sure) and I'm wondering if it's worth doing now. I am using a Macbook Pro with retina so I am somewhat concerned about compatibility issues, but as long as the display drivers work and I can run all of the programs I use I am inclined to get it. Thoughts?

I've been using W8 on my retina MBP for a few months now, and while bootcamp has some funkiness, Windows 8 handles 2880x1800 quite well for the most part. Some applications don't quite understand what's going on. SQL Server Management Studio for instance has a very tiny splash screen, but once the application launches, it's definitely usable. I recently "upgraded" to 16GB of ram in my MBP so I'm quite happy using Parallels now so I don't have to reboot to switch between Windows 8 and OSX.

Sounds good to me. I'll admit I mostly use Windows 7 on my Macbook; I should probably use OSX more but I'm just so used to Windows. I guess I have pretty good vision because in Windows 7 I disabled all of the scaling stuff that bootcamp enables by default and just use it as a normal 2880x1800 display so that I can fit more stuff on the screen, so as long as I can keep that up in Windows 8 I will probably do the upgrade.

Windows 8 is a Tablet focused UI being forced upon desktop systems.

Metro's biggest seeling point is that it's touch friendly. My desktop does not, and likely will never have a touchscreen.

I'll upgrade from Windows 7 when Microsoft releases an OS clearly designed for my computer.

Windows 8 is a Tablet focused UI being forced upon desktop systems.

Metro's biggest seeling point is that it's touch friendly. My desktop does not, and likely will never have a touchscreen.

I'll upgrade from Windows 7 when Microsoft releases an OS clearly designed for my computer.

Windows 8 is tablet focused in that you can use it on a tablet without wanting to throw your computer into the wall. It's not tablet focused in that things are more difficult on a desktop than they were before.