I can't wait until they start introducing the start menu back in Windows 8.2.

Start Menu is overrated.

But with new Windows 8.1 and Windows 9 coming up, I don't see why they'd make DX12 Win7 compatible. Win8 already has a desktop mode. Win9 most likely will have the same. And seeing as MS wants people off of NT/2000 architecture and onto WinRT, it just makes more sense to have all the newest, shiny things for Win8 and above.

But I could be wrong and I'd be ok with that.

If Microsoft really wants to go through with pushing people off of NT and onto WinRT what they will accomplish is pushing people to Linux.

Personally, I don't see Win8 being so bad that it'll push people toward using Linux. I mean... it would have to be pretty bad. Mac OSX, maybe. But very doubtful. Mind you when I said WinRT, I didn't mean the Metro-only version. I meant the platform as a whole (Metro and Desktop).

But yeah, Win8 isn't so bad that if people were forced to use it, then suddenly would mass-abandon MS. I think that's hoping for too much.

It's not that bad.. but it's definitely a step down from 7, for doing work on. I haven't used it that much (use it in VirtualBox only), but every change I encounter from 7 is either unnecessary or just makes it worse.

If I came from never having used Windows before, then they might be equal.. but changing things that already work perfectly fine doesn't make sense. Seems they just ran out of things to upgrade... so they changed them instead to make it "new". For a normal desktop work-flow with a keyboard and a mouse Windows 7 is already close enough to optimal that there's not really anywhere to go.

I personally believe touch-support is a good thing, and I'd gladly have all my monitors with touch. Not that I'd use it very much, but can't hurt. Any other major changes are just unnecessary and there's very little to gain.

Its not that bad, some of the UI changes are a bit annoying on the desktop (all file extensions defaulting to full-screen apps and crap like that just doesn't make much sense) but it can be fixed with a few hours of work and some third party applications, apart from the default UI settings it is a rock solid and reasonably fast OS (Best Microsoft has made thus far).

But it really isn't a good thing when a Windows version requires more customization to be usable than many Linux distributions.

But it really isn't a good thing when a Windows version requires more customization to be usable than many Linux distributions.

Really?
Because by my count you can get around 99% of the issues people moan about with two apps from the same vendor; Start8 gives you back a start menu and boot to desktop pre-8.1 and Modern Mix makes Modern Apps run in a window and appear on the desktop.

I personally run the former and toyed with the latter but was ok with the pdf reader (the only app I use which is a modern app) being full screen as I can just drag it to the other window.

It's a functional OS. You can use it to run programs. By that yardstick it works fine and is acceptable.

The touchscreen UI is unsuitable for mouse-and-keyboard use, and the mouse-and-keyboard UI is unsuitable for touch use. It's problem is that at any given moment it may wrench you from one to the other and you're landed in a UI that's unsuitable for what you're currently doing.

In fact being yanked from the touchscreen UI to the mouse-and-keyboard UI, if you're currently using it in touchscreen mode, is at least an order of magnitude worse than the other way round. By that yardstick the touchscreen component was unfinished and shouldn't have launched.

You shouldn't have to install third-party programs to get a functional UI in mouse-and-keyboard mode.

Eh, it's not the worst thing ever but it definitely suffers from lots of "Whyyyy??" changes for desktop users. This is doubly true for non-power users who aren't going to be comfortably installing shells and monkeying with settings.

And I still need to restart in Safe Mode to install fonts because ?????????

It isn't just "that bad", it is worse. It's not just about the start menu, but about so many WTF details. Literally everything that once worked perfectly well is a total fuck-up.

The most recent example I've encountered was trying to preview some photos from my camera's chip. Which, of course, turned out being a total WTF.

The start menu will be back on Windows 8.1.1(annonced on //Build). i love Windows 8.

Windows 8 is pretty good (and that's coming from an ardent profession Linux developer who uses Ubuntu across all devices, phone tablet laptop and desktop, all the time).

It's like windows 7 except for some annoying stuff that you turn off to make it like windows 7.