Thing is, Windows 8 (or 8.1) simply doesn't work properly, despite what its fans say.

Citation needed because as someone who has used Win8 since release what you've written there is complete and utter bullshit.

Win8 works properly, has been working properly and, of all the OSes I've used, given me the least amount of trouble from Day 1 that I can remember.

So, come one... how does it 'simple not work' because all of us using Win8 would be REALLY interested to know how the OS isn't working...

Yeah, I've been using Windows 8 all along for everything too and it works just fine.

These arguments spring up every time MS change the start menu

It is not about the start menu at all, though. The fact that the start menu has disappeared (and reappeared as a mock in 8.1) is only an annoyance, not a hindrance. There's Classic Shell which kind of restores the functionality (with very minor shortcomings), too.

It's the fact that Microsoft disabled something -- without giving the user an option -- that worked fine for users, without any urgent reason. The same goes for Aero. You can think about Aero what you want, I personally thought "oh my god, how childish" when I first saw Vista. When I finally, after years, switched from XP to 7, I enabled it just out of curiosity. You know, just once, to try. Guess what, I still have it enabled today.

Now, Aero works perfectly fine, except for the smart window placement (which has some very intelligent components, but also some very annoying ones, and you can only turn on all or none!). Windows 8 still has Aero window placement, but doesn't have anything else, although the functionality is readily available and works perfectly fine. Under Win7, you can always disable Aero if you don't like it. Yeah, it burns maybe half a microwatt extra on my GPU which is 0.001% utilized on the average, who cares.

There are some things that can't be changed, like the use of the ribbon UI on file explorer windows, but people don't seem to be criticising that (which seems especially odd given how much hate there seemed to be when it appeared in Office).

This is another one of the needless annoyances that I've stated in the other thread. Of course it's just a design choice, and one could even argue that it is a "good thing" because it makes Windows consistent with Office. But then again, modern Office is a misdesign, and it's in my opinion a bad approach to enforce something that has already proven to be ill-designed onto another product.

Everyday things that used to be trivial one-click (like new folder) or two-click actions (like changing the view or everything else) using the menus are now much more complicated in Explorer, much like in Office.

If only the ribbon UI worked well for touch, then I'd kind of accept it, but it doesn't.

There are so many things they could have worked on instead. For example super dumb "library folders". These were in Win7 already and the idea was a good one. But if you happen to have your images on a NAS and want them to be in your "pictures library" you're just fucked. Because, hey, you can add folders that are on USB sticks or other removable drives, but network mapped drives are out of the question.

Now that is an example of something they could have improved in Windows 8, instead of botching with things that already worked perfectly well and making them worse (or removing them).

ending up with only being able to publish Windows software via MS

Well, unless you want to write Metro apps, then that is RT only so far, luckily. But it's a very valid concern of course. And not only you can't publish software without MS permission, you cannot even run Metro apps on your own computer without them (which practically means MS owns your computer, not you...). That was the main point I named as dealbreaker for Metro development back then. You can't even develop and test an app on your local computer without getting a license (which is free of charge to date, but still).

Citation needed

Luckily, this isn't Wikipedia. But feel free to do a forum search for a very incomplete list of the countless issues that I've had. Starting with obnoxious changing of settings without asking the user, moving files to an external drive without asking, and being significantly slower copying files to/from the same physical device, an "accessibility" user interface that locks the user out, and a diversity of display driver issues (those are likely Intel's fault as much as Microsoft's since it's Intel writing the driver, but nevertheless the net result is these problems occur solely under Win8, not under Win7). The most annoying and persistent one of these being window ghosting (the crashes upon returning from power save have in the mean time been fixed).

No, but throwing around terms like "simply doesn't work" when others are using it just fine requires some backup because otherwise.. well, you leave yourself open to terms such as 'talking bullshit'; more to the point I'm not going to go hunting for your issues because, well, see 'bullshit' comment again based on my own experiences.

1) Changing settings - nope.
2) Moving files - nope.
3) Copying - noticeably faster on all counts
4) No idea what you mean by 'accessibility user interface'
5) Display driver issues - less than Win7
6) Never seen 'window ghosting'

What issues I DID have was down to a failing drive as since replacing it I've had zero stability problems that I didn't cause myself (over heating gfx card). Could it be that, maybe, just maybe, the problem is at your end?

I'm not even mentioning Metro with its 1 million issues so far, or the start button which you seem to believe is my main problem (the start button really isn't much of an issue, but it's one of many needless annoyances). Or the fact that you can't use desktop and Metro side by side, or use the desktop alone. Or the fact that you are bound to use inferior Intel Atom CPUs (which combine being comparatively expensive with having a high power consumption and poor performance -- the best of all worlds) because the ARM version can only be bought as "RT", which is even more shit because you can't do absolutely anything with that machine.

Really? '1 million'? Erm, ok.
1) Never said anything about the start button, but feel free to keep putting words in my mouth.
2) See post above where I show that on Win8.1 I can side-by-side Modern Apps and the Desktop across two monitors
3) Which generation Atom? Recent generations are both power efficient AND better than the ARM ones tested. Also I use Win8 on an i7.
3a) WinRT tablets are a side issue to the Win8 and Modern Apps on those devices are the only way to do things.
3b) I also have a Surface Pro 2, which is an Intel CPU device and is a great tablet/laptop replacement which, with a pen, mixes the best of both worlds and was my only PC for a week when I was away from home.

Then you must be very lucky, or you're really only using it for posting on Twitter and such. Of course "works properly" is very much dependent on your point of view.

Really? Personal attacks now on how I use the PC without any evident to back it up? I mean, sure if this was a general purpose forum I could see your point but gamedev above the door should probably point out I use it for more than use 'posting on twitter' and such.
But hey, I'll bite, as I use my PC for development (VS2013), gaming (fps, rts, tbs etc via Steam games mostly), web based activities, music listening AND production and writing.. so, yeah, a small host of things... man, I must be SO LUCKY that none of those things cause me problems... sheesh.

General Motors would argue that the 1.6 million cars with both faulty ignition switches and defective airbags which apparently killed ca. 300 people so far are also "working fine". 300 deaths over 1.6 million are not very significant, and for the most part, their cars "work fine". They drive, which is what a car is supposed to do. Which is "works fine", so what do you complain about.

Really? You are going to use the 'broken parts kill people' comparison? Yeah.. REALLY CLASSY.. and not remotely in the same league as you are describing things you don't like vs broken parts, and as noted above some of the things you don't like are, well, wrong (Modern App section above) and more importantly the you described the OS as not working properly which is clearly not the case as for many people it works properly and they have no problems or they wouldn't keep using it.

I mean, Win8 cost me £25 - if it was truly broken then I'd go back to Win7 because £25 is nothing. Hell, I'll blow more than twice that on a night out and not think twice about it so it's not like I'm sticking with it to justify some expensive buying choice.

So, yeah, not buying "simply doesn't work properly" at all and continues to sound like BS.

I have a mouse, I can move it to the corner to activate the hospot. I find it particularly odd that people thought removing the start button was done *for* tablet users...

Try it on a non-fullscreen remote desktop session to a 2012 server. If that's not broken UI I don't know what is. ;)

Seriously, this excessive focus on the Start button/menu as being people's primary complaint - that's a total misrepresentation. What was done to those is just symptomatic of a deeper problem.

Try it on a non-fullscreen remote desktop session to a 2012 server. If that's not broken UI I don't know what is. ;)

I do that everyday. Granted it's not perfect, but certainly not bad. And definitely not broken.

1) Changing settings - nope.

You won't listen, so it's kind of pointless, but here is an example, happened just today.

Ran Windows Update, first time after maybe 3 or 4 weeks. 10 or 11 "important" updates, whatever Microsoft deems important, OK. Install, reboot, and now I have a Homegroup Network icon (or what it's called in English, thanks to Microsoft translating every crap to unintellegible German words, I'm never sure if I back-translate to a correct English term...) on my desktop. It wasn't there before, and I sure didn't put it there.

Try to delete it, surprise, doesn't work (no, I didn't really expect it to be that easy). Opening it brings up a window that tells me I haven't configured sharing my files. Of course not, because FUCK, I DON'T WANT THAT.

So... if they've tampered with file sharing, they've probably enabled some shitty service without asking, too. Lauch Services, and Io and behold, there's Homegroup Network Provider running now. I never asked for that to happen. Stop and disable the service, and the icon is gone.

Windows 8 does that kind of shit all the time. I never have any such stuff happening with Windows 7. Deny it if you like, but it's nevertheless true.

Windows 8 does that kind of shit all the time. I never have any such stuff happening with Windows 7. Deny it if you like, but it's nevertheless true.

Yes, but 'true in this one case' DOES NOT EQUAL "simply doesn't work properly".

"Has issues", "Does things I don't like" - sure, fair enough, wouldn't have argued the point but a phrase "simply doesn't work properly" implies it is fundamentally broken which is demonstrably not the case.

If we were going by your definition of "simply doesn't work properly" then, imo, Linux, OSX and Android and, yes, even your darling Win7, are all also in that category and no OS that exists should be used because none of them work correctly.

In fact, screw it, by your position we should stop all this technology lark and get back into the caves... don't even bother with fire! It can burn people! That's clearly simply doesn't work properly either! Lets all just huddle in the dark and wait to die...

Try it on a non-fullscreen remote desktop session to a 2012 server. If that's not broken UI I don't know what is. ;)

I do that everyday. Granted it's not perfect, but certainly not bad. And definitely not broken.

Well your hand-eye coordination must be a whole lot better than mine then. Because the wee corner spot is so small that you can easily miss it and shoot off the bottom-left of the mstsc window, which is a basic accessibility problem. And the start button doesn't work at all in windowed remote desktop sessions. (Hint: "I think it's OK" != "there are no problems at all".)

Having used Windows 8 now for almost a year on a laptop with a touch screen and a pen... it just doesn't make any sense to me. Its supposed to be 'easier to use' but in fact its much more difficult. I can get by, but the less computer savvy members of my household are just stumped by it. All the functionality is hidden away in menu's requiring gestures with no explanation or consistency. Sometimes you're swiping from the bottom, sometimes the top, sometimes the left, sometimes the right, sometimes a corner... Which side or corner for a given function is not even remotely intuitive. The swiping mechanic is rather 'sticky' and requires a very precise gesture, so many times you think that maybe there is no menu, when in fact there is and you just didn't swipe it 'right'. Some apps open in metro, some in desktop, but again only someone who is computer savvy would know how to set it up such that it only chooses one or the other. The list of gripes just goes on. Each one isn't huge in and on itself, but eventually you find your self spending all your time fighting the stupid OS than working with it. Seems every time I use it I find something new that annoys me.

Granted as a 'power' user its not supposed to be designed for me, but its certainly not designed for the computer illiterate, so I have no idea who they were designing it for. 'Computer savvy non-power users' is more an oxymoron than a niche market. They should have just released metro for tablets/phones, and left metro out of the PC version of Windows 8.

(Hint: "I think it's OK" != "there are no problems at all".)

(Better hint: "I think it's not OK" != "OMG, it's so broken").