I cannot recommend a move from Win7 to 8 point anything.

Ravyne, on 23 Oct 2013 - 4:38 PM, said:
Some of the window 8 style touch gestures suck for mousing (I'm looking at you, drag-from-edge-to-X), but learning a couple keyboard shortcuts sidesteps the issue entirely.

Yeah, you don't use those when using a mouse. The mouse version to get the same effect is to throw the cursor into the top left or top right corner and pull down.

Which are alternative but equally-awkward options. In either case I have to unintuitively move my pointer to an odd location, then "drag" it in a particular way, even if I don't have to hold a mouse button down. The keyboard shortcuts are are the better options, IMO; they're quicker, keep your hands nearer the home row, and probably saves your shoulder a ton of RSI over a lifetime. I work for Microsoft, if anyone here should want the kool-aid to taste good its me, but gestures of any type map poorly to mousing. If any one gesture should work with a mouse, it'd be to "flick" through a scrollable list horizontally, but even that feels awkward with a mouse.

I get Windows 8 from my laptop. Hated it. A few points:
They replaced the Start menu to a Start screen. I don't actually mind that, except the screen does not offer much practical use other than for eye candy. The live tiles are completely useless since the size is limited. Windows 8.1 seem to have fixed this by adding two more sizes. That's still pointless, IMO. If I want it live, I want to see more. For example, if I want a live weather tile, I want to resize it that I can see the weather in 5 different cities/days all at once. I don't want it to cycle through like it does today. I want to read 5 news headlines at a time, not one that cycle every 5 seconds.

There is nothing stopping you from having the weather for five different cities at once. Windows 8 live tiles allow you to have different entry points to your application and you can create secondary tiles which show different / additional information.

If you want to read five news headlines at a time, maybe you should just launch the app?

Why on earth did they put the "Shut Down" button under Settings?

Agreed. Stupid decision. Then again, it's pretty much a non-issue. How often do you actually shut down a computer these days?

How do you close an app? When you launch certain apps from the Start screen, the ones designed for the new look, they will take up the entire screen and wont have the title bar. Which means, how do I close it? I know it's all designed for tablet and such and there is no such thing like close on tablets, but how do I close this app for good?? I don't want it to run in the background.

Same shortcuts that worked in Windows 7 work in Windows 8. Alt-F4. Alternatively, the "tablet" way to close it is to drag the app down to the bottom edge of the screen. You can also right click the app in the switcher and choose close from there.

I work for Microsoft, if anyone here should want the kool-aid to taste good its me, but gestures of any type map poorly to mousing.

Cool. What's your alias?

I was running Windows 8 for awhile, and now I'm using 8.1.

Let me just say this right now: I hate you, Windows 8 (and 8.1).

Windows 8 might be great on a tablet, and maybe on a laptop with a touch screen. But on a desktop or laptop with no touch screen, it feels... awkward.

8.1 added almost nothing that I care about (except the ability to boot straight to desktop, which a bit more convenient). The "Start Button" is useless and just brings up the metro-style dash (which I try to avoid like the plague, seeing as I use non-metro apps for everything). And those are about the biggest changes I've noticed in 8 vs 8.1.

Why on earth did they put the "Shut Down" button under Settings?

Agreed. Stupid decision. Then again, it's pretty much a non-issue. How often do you actually shut down a computer these days?

Every day. Multiple times a day. On multiple computers.

I wish people would stop making it so hard to shut down my computer (OS X 10.9 sucks at this too, as I have to hold my power button down for a few seconds for it to shutdown).

For people who love Windows 7 and hate 8's start screen, there is only one thing you really need to know: WindowsKey+Q (which they fixed in Win8.1 to work like windows 7's "tap start button, type, hit enter" flow)

I wish people would stop making it so hard to shut down my computer (OS X 10.9 sucks at this too, as I have to hold my power button down for a few seconds for it to shutdown).

lolwut?

Having to shutdown machines so often is definitely an exception and is far from the norm. The vast majority of people just desktops on, or just shut laptops when they are done using them. If you're an exception, the user experience is not designed for you. It is designed for the 99.9% of other people who don't have your edge case. If you are a "power user" or have special requirements, you're best learning the keyboard shortcuts for the operating systems that you work on.

I think the biggest mistake MS has made with windows 8 was trying to push the Windows Store (formerly "Metro") mode of interaction so hard that they've really hamstrung people's perceptions. For example, many file types by default are assigned to open using Windows Store apps. In Win8, you could choose a desktop-style app (that is, a 'legacy' windows app) to open it instead, and if you worked mostly on the desktop that's probably what you want. Windows 8.1 actually allows you to set different applications that will open the file based on whether you opened it from a desktop application or a windows store application, which is good, but again by default I'm pretty certain they prefer the store-style apps. Honestly, when a user sets up their account for the first time they should be given the option to say "I work mostly on the desktop" and have appropriate file associations set by default (with the option to customize in greater detail if the user wants). Neither the Store-style or desktop-style modes of operation are poor on their own, its mostly that they don't interoperate and moving between the two is jarring and wastes time -- especially when its unexpected.

That said, I daresay that most people who still hate on Windows 8 or 8.1 just haven't taken the time to configure these kinds of behaviors in a way that suits them. Its not even that they're used to having it done for them, it was just never something that was a concern before.

Which is not to defend the decision to have two modalities of interaction co-exist as they do -- I actually think it would have been the smarter play to have "Windows RT 8/.1" be completely free of the legacy desktop -- even at the cost of not supporting Office -- and just be aimed as a solution for consuming apps and media. There's no reason those apps couldn't also be supported on the full-fat Windows 8/.1 desktop by popping it into a window frame (those apps already have to support keyboard and mouse anyway, and fullscreen vs. not isn't that big of a deal) -- and I daresay this would have been more usable for both the full-fat and RT usage models. Heck, even a lot of the live-tile functionality could have been integrated into desktop icons or a re-vamped start menu.

I wish people would stop making it so hard to shut down my computer (OS X 10.9 sucks at this too, as I have to hold my power button down for a few seconds for it to shutdown).

lolwut?

Sure, I can do that, but I hate using my mouse/touchpad (I try to take my fingers off the keyboard as little as possible). It's true, this is a very minor issue, but going from something that was more convenient to something that I consider now less convenient is something that's easy to complain about. My main gripe with this change is that the power button is right by the backspace button, and now that they changed how the power button works, tapping it will put the computer to sleep (which I do sometimes when I miss the backspace button).

Having to shutdown machines so often is definitely an exception and is far from the norm. The vast majority of people just desktops on, or just shut laptops when they are done using them. If you're an exception, the user experience is not designed for you. It is designed for the 99.9% of other people who don't have your edge case. If you are a "power user" or have special requirements, you're best learning the keyboard shortcuts for the operating systems that you work on.

That's very true. I agree with that. That said, I wish systems would be more customizable (for instance, I wouldn't care at all about the power button behavior change, so long as I could modify the behavior in some system panel). Plus, while I agree with what you said, I'm not convinced that some changes are better for the average user. Like the power button thing (sorry for bringing it up again). Don't most people just close their laptop when they want to put it to sleep? In which case, making that the primary function for the power button seems... strange to me.

I won't say OS X or Windows suck, but I can point out specific things that suck for me. Again, when something goes from more convenient (for me) to less convenient (for me) it's easy to complain about it. And maybe I'm complaining louder than I should be. Oh well.

My main gripe with this change is that the power button is right by the backspace button, and now that they changed how the power button works, tapping it will put the computer to sleep (which I do sometimes when I miss the backspace button).

Agreed. Try ctrl + power button for the old dialog.