The poll would've been more interesting if there were 3 options: "I tried it and I like it", "I tried it and I don't like it", "I haven't tried it".

Yeah, should have done that, oh well.

I see the discussion for this is still happening.

I remember near the beggining of the poll the majority liked Windows 8, but over the last month that slowly changed to the majority disliking windows 8. I don't know if that means anything, just mentioning that.

I've been using Windows 8 Pro for about 2 weeks now. So far, I absolutely enjoy it!

I do gaming, social media, movies, music, C# and Java development and just about everything with it.

The major complaints are kind of odd, imho.

---- People say, "It's basically the same thing with a little better memory management" then go on to say "It's a regression", yet give no reasons why it's a regression.

----"It's designed for tablets" isn't really a negative comment about Windows 8. Instead, the comment is just a simple fact, the new start menu is much more usable for a tablet than the old start menu (from Windows 7). But did you also notice the new start menu is more usable for desktop/laptops as well, when compared to the start menu from Windows 7?

----"History shows us every other Windows OS release is bad". Are you going to base your judgement of Windows 8 based on that statement alone? MEME's on the Windows 8 logo isn't really a professional or logical way to review an OS. Think about how ignorant that thought process is.

Windows 8 seems faster and cleaner to me. All of the desktop/start menu clutter is now gone and I'm left with a much more usable desktop interface. I almost never have to use the new start screen, but when I do it's faster than using the old start menu. I can also have 'metro style' apps running in the background (great for iHeartRadio and other music apps) that don't clutter up my workspace.

Windows 8 is almost exactly like Windows 7, except it now has a MUCH more robust start menu and better search function. It also supports multi-monitors in a much more functional way. For example, I can have my taskbar items only show up on the monitors that they are open on, which is very useful (and again removes clutter). Another example, those linux users who gloat about having multiple desktops at once can now lavish in the ability to do just that with Windows 8. You have the traditional desktop and you have a new 'metro' style desktop, both can be open at the same time and multiple monitors running different apps (granted, the metro 'desktop' only runs metro apps). Try and think about the usefulness of the new setup. Personally I've found it very very useful to have 2 desktops running at the same time.

The problem is, I believe people WANT to hate it before they use it. So, when they finally do use it they only see the negative, but ignore that fact that nothing has been taken away from their regular desktop experience. In fact, the new start menu, search function, and ability to install metro style apps greatly enhances the Windows OS experience.

Anyway, I haven't seen a logical reason for why Windows 8 is worse than Windows 7. I have, however, experienced a lot of reasons for why Windows 8 is much improved over Windows 7.

I watched

">an interesting critique of windows 8 the other day. I can't say I agree with everything he says, and given I still haven't really used win 8 for anything other than a few minutes play in a shop, I'm not really in a position to comment. Anyone else care to comment on it?

I watched

">an interesting critique of windows 8 the other day. I can't say I agree with everything he says, and given I still haven't really used win 8 for anything other than a few minutes play in a shop, I'm not really in a position to comment. Anyone else care to comment on it?

Meh... a better use of 20+ minutes if you're interested in Windows 8.

">

Or the condensed version.

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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.

I always remind people of the 'old' whining and compare to the new, yet its the same complaints over and over, im so glad someone else mentioned this before I had a chance.

Also Windows 7 went from "Just a vista clone + bug fixes" to "a decent step up to XP".

I use windows server 2012, in June I will prob be developing for windows 8, but so far I have no real complaints about the OS, I feel a few weeks ago I might have, but I cant remember what they were.

I have 4 buttons on normal desktop eitherway and maybe this is just me but I use to pin popular apps to the taskbar anyway, if anything the start menu served very little use, something I only really became aware of when using windows 8.

I watched

">an interesting critique of windows 8 the other day. I can't say I agree with everything he says, and given I still haven't really used win 8 for anything other than a few minutes play in a shop, I'm not really in a position to comment. Anyone else care to comment on it?

I'm still watching it, but so far here's what I have to say. I'll update as I watch.

• He complains about things 'just happening'. His example is the weather app popping up at random times. I do not know how he got Windows 8 to do that, but I have literally never experienced something similar thus far.
• He complains that apps are full screen in metro. Metro is designed for the average user who generally only cares about doing one thing. Had they not also included desktop this would be a totally valid complaint, but as most power users can and should just avoid metro in most cases, I don't think it holds water. Also they aren't always full screen.
• He complains he can't close apps. If he had watched the video during the installation he would know you just drag down from the top or mouse to top left and right click the app.
• He says it treats the touchpad like a tablet touch screen. This is a driver issue. Not a windows 8 issue afaik.
• He complains about swyping gestures being similar. That's true, but they are different. Dragging from left off the screen will switch apps. Dragging from left anywhere else works the way you'd expect. Windows 8 is designed around using the edges of the screen as control anchors; I feel like he just couldn't get over this paradigm.
• He couldn't find the control panel. The control panel options are now all searchable and separate results, so the control panel as we know it is pretty much deprecated. His example "Start->Control Panel->Period" is 1. actually more like "Start->Control Panel->Audio Devices" 2. is now done like "Windows key->'audio devices'"
• "Nobody uses the windows key," he should be hit in the face with a phonebook for saying this.
• He has a lot of arbitrary complaints. "Why is it called the charms bar?!" Who cares?
• He complains that live tiles are confusing. Some are, but I find them many times more useful regardless of how confusing they are. If you prefer a non-confusing icon, you can use the min sized version and it will be an icon. He then says they are not 'information dense'. They aren't dense with information about the app, they are dense with information about what you would use the app for. In many cases this means I don't even have to open an app anymore because the live tile tells me most of what I want to know.
• No white/blank space on the start screen. This is fairly subjective. I personally disagree, but to each his own.

He couldn't find the control panel. The control panel options are now all searchable and separate results, so the control panel as we know it is pretty much deprecated. His example "Start->Control Panel->Period" is 1. actually more like "Start->Control Panel->Audio Devices" 2. is now done like "Windows key->'audio devices'"

Right click on the lower left corner of the screen and you can access some kind of "old start menu" where you actually have more interesting choices than in the old start menu. From there you can easily access the control panel.

Also, what I just realized: Metro is perfect for a second screen. Having Youtube videos, Twitter or Skype open all the time while also filling the whole screen is perfect when you are working or playing a game on the other screen:



I mean it's not much different as to what you could do with windowed applications. But metro applications simply "feel" much better than windowed applications on the second screen. I don't even know how to describe it xD

Also Windows 7 went from "Just a vista clone + bug fixes" to "a decent step up to XP".

To be fair, many people kept calling it "what Vista should have been". 7 had it easy, really.

He complains he can't close apps. If he had watched the video during the installation he would know you just drag down from the top or mouse to top left and right click the app.

I can see from where this comes. Some time ago Microsoft sent in one of their newsletters some PDF teaching programmers how to get started making Metro apps. I assume it was already outdated, because it had quite a large bunch of wrong information. One of the things it mentioned is that apps can't be closed. Apps were expected to save their status when they lost focus, and when the system started running out of memory Windows would automatically start closing apps as needed.

Not sure how much of an issue would that be unless Windows failed miserably at managing memory (though it was never stellar in that sense), but whatever, in the end you can close apps. Another thing that PDF said was that apps couldn't be run in the background...

He couldn't find the control panel. The control panel options are now all searchable and separate results, so the control panel as we know it is pretty much deprecated. His example "Start->Control Panel->Period" is 1. actually more like "Start->Control Panel->Audio Devices" 2. is now done like "Windows key->'audio devices'"

I can see this being an issue if you don't know exactly what to write. Isn't there a proper settings menu anyway?

"Nobody uses the windows key," he should be hit in the face with a phonebook for saying this.

Just call this guy -__-'

Serious question, how does Metro fare when it comes to shortcuts? I'm not going to switch back to Windows, but I'm curious, I'm a very keyboard heavy user and make use of shortcuts a lot. I would see a legitimate reason to get upset if the use of shortcuts has been dumbed down, a mouse is simply slower. It doesn't matter there are desktop programs, I see no reason why Metro apps couldn't make good use of shortcuts too, so I'd like to know how well is that handled.

In the end my biggest worry isn't the GUI anyway, it's the direction Microsoft is taking with the store. Metro apps are expected to be the future of Windows, but the only way to get a Metro app is through their store =/

He complains he can't close apps. If he had watched the video during the installation he would know you just drag down from the top or mouse to top left and right click the app.

I can see from where this comes. Some time ago Microsoft sent in one of their newsletters some PDF teaching programmers how to get started making Metro apps. I assume it was already outdated, because it had quite a large bunch of wrong information. One of the things it mentioned is that apps can't be closed. Apps were expected to save their status when they lost focus, and when the system started running out of memory Windows would automatically start closing apps as needed.

Not sure how much of an issue would that be unless Windows failed miserably at managing memory (though it was never stellar in that sense), but whatever, in the end you can close apps. Another thing that PDF said was that apps couldn't be run in the background...

This was the case in the first preview release, and it was quite irritating as applications would be permanently stuck in the task switching order so if you accidentally launched an application you didn't mean to it would keep popping up as you switched between tasks. You could only terminate apps via task manager or rebooting - fortunately they gave us a way to close them in the next preview release.

Serious question, how does Metro fare when it comes to shortcuts? I'm not going to switch back to Windows, but I'm curious, I'm a very keyboard heavy user and make use of shortcuts a lot. I would see a legitimate reason to get upset if the use of shortcuts has been dumbed down, a mouse is simply slower. It doesn't matter there are desktop programs, I see no reason why Metro apps couldn't make good use of shortcuts too, so I'd like to know how well is that handled.

Metro apps tend to be pointer-happy, though they do respond to keyboard input - Alt+F4 closes them, as you'd expect, and there are some new standard Win+key shortcuts for use inside apps (Win+Z brings up the toolbar that appears when you swipe the top/bottom edge and Win+I brings up the settings bar that appears if when you swipe the right edge, though these can also be invoked by hovering the mouse to the right edge of the screen or right clicking). Beyond that it's up to individual apps for how well they support the keyboard - they tend to respond to cursor keys and tab as you'd expect, however.

Side note: Today is the last day you can upgrade to windows 8 for cheap. Tomorrow the price jumps by a lot.