Originally Posted by johnpombrio

Uh, the post is about BIGGEST PROBLEMS with Windows 8. Yes, it is beta and yes, I EXPECT problems and I AM REPORTING my BIGGEST PROBLEMS in this post!
I am certainly glad you are 100% but a quick look at the posts here in this forum shows that many are not. I am a pretty damn good engineer (troubleshooting hardware and systems in the field for HP for 25 years) but there are some issues I am having RIGHT NOW and I am NOT WILLING to spend hours and hours troubleshooting them especially if they just magically disappear in the next windows update. Yes, users are the problem, drivers are the problem, programs that don't work are the problem, and being beta is a problem. THEY ARE STILL PROBLEMS, MS to blame or not.

Have you noticed the success I've had helping people through all ranges of problems, from bsods to freezes to lots of other things?

You never gave me your system info when I requested it - if you would have, your system too would be well.



It doesn't take me hours. It takes seconds.

"Power" users that belittle Windows 8 becasue it doesn't have a start menu/users that don't actually USE Windows 8 as main OS have no opinion...


My biggest concern with it at the moment is the EXTREME lack of customization. I can deck out the Desktop with themes and sounds, but the Start Screen doesn't have that. In fact, I have to go elsewhere to even change that, like PC Settings. Even then, nine colors is anemic to choose from. Why not just have the 16 colors that the Desktop offers, consolidate that down to main colors, and allow for color precicion selection? I don't like how there's a slider thing in the initial setup, it's too...out of place.

I also think another problem is the serious segregation between the Desktop and Start Screen. Initially when Windows 8 was announced, the Start Screen was a new iteration of the start menu. Now, it's silently turned into a new interface in itself. (Please, I don't want to hear the Microsoft marketing ploy) Why not, on non-touch PCs or even all PCs, make the Start Screen be the TRUE, new iteration of the start menu? Why must it not?

Also, going along with personalization and integration, I'd like to see themes that go across the system.

Another problem, going with colors, is with the colors of the Start Screen. Choosing dark red for the Start Screen, it results in a screen with dark red puked on, the same with grey and blue and on. The Start Screen was based on the Windows Phone 7, but with the Windows Phone, choosing red is both a complement color and a tile color. If unlocked, one can choose custom color backgrounds and tile backgrounds. This needs to happen with Windows 8.

Another problem I see is Aero design. Metro and Aero design really can't coexist with each other. One's new and modern, the other was new and modern in 2006. Windows Explorer MUST be designed metro style. That doesn't mean taking the UI and making it flat and calling it good. It means genuinely going through and replacing iconography with metro ones, it means a consistent way to navigate through files (I want to scroll horizontally through files like in metro), and it means taking the old Aero design of open windows and making them just simply, digitally transparent. It shouldn't be a glassy design, but just pixel transparency.

Or to sum up simply, the problem with Windows 8 is that the Desktop and Start Screen design and interfaces NEED to meshed and integrated together in a modern, innovative, integrated, and authenitc way than it is now.

EXTREME lack of customization

How many 'customization' options did we have with the old Start menu? You could not even put folders on it - at least not without gymnastics.

"My biggest concern with it at the moment is the EXTREME lack of customization. I can deck out the Desktop with themes and sounds, but the Start Screen doesn't have that."

I'd say it's got to do a lot with the fact that this is going to be run on lesser machines and tablets. If you look at the boot up time into metro, I'd say MS has really cleaned out anything that may take up computing power, fancy graphics take up more than most. I think that by talking a backward step MS has made this OS light and nimble enough to run on practically any PC or Tablet.
Considering the fact that it runs amazingly well on a 3 year old Netbook, I'd say they've pretty well nailed it. I'm sure over time as the new breed of Lightweight chips become more powerfull they'll loosen the reigns.

Originally Posted by whs

EXTREME lack of customization

How many 'customization' options did we have with the old Start menu? You could not even put folders on it - at least not without gymnastics.

I'm not really speaking in the context of folders and organizing, since the Start Screen does that FAR better than the start menu could.

I'm saying how the Start Screen doesn't have a lot of color customization, or how that color customization doesn't stream out everywhere. I mean, it's the first thing you see when you start up your PC. On a desktop, you wouldn't see it a lot, but on for an ARM tablet user; the Start Screen will be the user's main home screen or even their "Desktop." On a Windows slate, the Start Screen would be used more. I would imagine someone would want to customize it more color wise than the limited set. I could use a third party tool to do that, but that would defeat the purpose of Windows 8 of "already doing that."

For example, I changed my Windows Phone's tile color from red to blue and I could choose to have a white backgroud versus a black one. That there is more customization than Windows 8. Also, with the Windows Phone, your color choice is system wide. In Mail, unread mail titles are in blue. The loading animation is in blue. Unread messages are in blue. The highlight color is blue. You get the point.

Windows 8 should do that and more. It should extend from Start Screen to Desktop. If I want red to be the tile color, red should also be a complement color so theoretically in Outlook 15, unread mail titles are in red. Highlight color should be red. Hyperlinks should be red in Word 15. You get the point.

On that I have to agree. The color choices are poor and the contrast for the writing is too faint. We should be able to customize the tiles into different colors.

Originally Posted by whs

On that I have to agree. The color choices are poor and the contrast for the writing is too faint. We should be able to customize the tiles into different colors.

The iconic John Dvorak has a LOT to say about the choice of tiles with words ("back to the DOS days"). He is baffled why they don't use easy to recognize icons.
The Serious Flaw with Win 8 and Metro | John C. Dvorak | PCMag.com

I've been trying it out in VMWare Player for a few days and overall I'm beginning to like it.
My biggest beef is that it is obviously designed for touch screens, I find that the "hot spot" (lower left) is too small and fiddly.

I don't have a touch screen, but after using 8 for a while, opening Start with a mouse is really fast.

By this, I mean I don't even think about it. I bust the mouse over to the extreme corner and without thinking or waiting or anything, just click and it opens. Maybe try something similar with touch. Just don't even pay attention to the screen. Go there like you know its there - like there IS a Start button in the extreme corner.

See if this kind of mentality helps at all with the touch - I dunno.

I see what you mean, my problem is that I am running two monitors and the cursor doesn't stop on the main monitor.
If I switch the monitors in W7 control panel, your solution works fine but it's all a** about face.
I don't want to physically switch them.
I'll live with it as I'm only evaluating Windows 8 and don't intend to upgrade until the finished version is available, and then a few months after that so the inevitable bugs have been flushed out.
Thanks for the prompt reply.