More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Win 7

Haven't been able to find any good news. At least this is funny :

Put bluntly, it would be fair to say that most desktop PC users never use Microsoft's vaunted new UI at all – or they only do so when they absolutely have to.

..they avoid the Start Screen like a leper wearing a loud shirt

Read more at:

More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Windows 7 ? The Register

 

[phillipduran]

Once again you make some almighty assumptions about people. Microsoft hasn't given you a choice. You only get an option by installing a third party program that gives back what Microsoft has taken away. Why is it so difficult to understand the meaning of choice?

Well, having that third party program IS a choice. Had MS really wanted to take the choice from you, they would have written the OS in such a way to prevent any start menu from ever resurfacing.

Let me ask you this. On your personal PC, how many third party programs do you use? Or are you one of those that refuses to install anything third party and whine about the lack of choice?

MS was trying to do exactly that, or at the very least they were trying to make it difficult to fix, by removing the registries that allowed for the easy return of the start menu. I think the beta testers complained but MS pushed on with their idea of what people need.

As soon as Windows 8 was unveiled the start menu hacks appeared. First, during the Consumer Preview, a registry hack emerged to re-enable the Windows 7 start menu. When Microsoft stood their ground and removed that old start menu altogether, the independent solutions began.

Read more at:
Bringing the Start Menu Back to Windows 8 is Bad News

 

[Rickkins]

Haven't been able to find any good news. At least this is funny :

Put bluntly, it would be fair to say that most desktop PC users never use Microsoft's vaunted new UI at all – or they only do so when they absolutely have to.

..they avoid the Start Screen like a leper wearing a loud shirt

Read more at:

More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Windows 7 ? The Register

Oh damn... cue the whining fanbois....

 

[johnpombrio]

I
But modern ui and apps is just not suited for my work flow. I'm usually multitasking, so I always need to see taskbar and other open windows (like Skype video chat, progress of some compilation or rendering, video player window and start menu all at the same time ). so full screen menu is not a good thing for me I prefer start menu that takes around 20-30% of my work space and programs that have windows so I can resize them not to fixed 75:25 or even 50:50 but to any location and size I like.

If I want single task only multitasking I have my android phone with small screen, thank you.

Baidukum, Check out ModernMix at Stardock. It is a way to run Start apps in a window on your desktop. You can shrink them down, minimize them, whatever. Sounds like exactly what you need. Beware tho, since I bought it I don't use it anymore as I find most apps just a web page wannabes.

 

[XweAponX]

This is exactly how I use Windows 8. I've puttered around with the Store, and now there are actually a few new apps that are useful, but they all work better with the desktop versions, especially OneNote and Evernote.

 

[Ray8]

Baidukum, Check out ModernMix at Stardock. It is a way to run Start apps in a window on your desktop. You can shrink them down, minimize them, whatever. Sounds like exactly what you need. Beware tho, since I bought it I don't use it anymore as I find most apps just a web page wannabes.

I tested out ModernMix and while it does what it says, it's restricted by the app developers. Many apps will not scale when you reduce the window size and so you need to scroll vertically and horizontally. It's not a fault with ModernMix, but the fact that the app developers are designing for a full screen view.

 

[Coke Robot]

So using the Desktop heavily in Windows 8 is now a BAD thing? Seriously, it's like some here just want to make muck out of EVERY SINGLE FREAKING THING even possibly conceivably wrong with Windows 8. Good grief.

I use the Desktop a lot. I use the immersive IE 10 over the Desktop version. I use about a dozen apps. Does that make me a bad Windows 8 user? No, I'm just using the choices given to me in the UI and OS to do whatever I feel like however I feel like. THERE WAS NO "CHOICE" TAKEN OUT OF WINDOWS 8. That is perception, not reality. The REALITY is is that there is a functioning UI there that is better than or equal to the one before it.

In fact...



This is ESSENTIALLY what the difference is here. Details view versus Large Icons view. That is LITERALLY it. To make such a fuss over something so trivial as that is beyond my physical comprehension. There are 44 folders shown in Large Icons view, about 30 in Details view, larger clickable targets, read naturally left to right, and uses screen estate better than.

Honestly, my almost three year old niece who started actually using an android tablet, smartphone and Windows Phone when she was barely two has more maturity and intelligence than some here who like to complain about EVERYTHING pertaining to Windows 8.

Seriously.

And I don't care if some will say this is "crass" or just simple name calling; toughen up sweetheart, that's life.

 

[Baidukun]

THERE WAS NO "CHOICE" TAKEN OUT OF WINDOWS 8. That is perception, not reality. The REALITY is is that there is a functioning UI there that is better than or equal to the one before it.

It is pointless to argue with blind fan boys.. but I will jump in to fire just once.
THERE WAS CHOICE TAKEN OUT OF WINDOWS 8. in early preview version with a simple registry edit you can get start menu back.. and Microsoft removed that choice deliberately. to leave windows 7 style start menu as a option would be 0 work for MS so why hinder it?

answer is simple they don't prioritize desktop.. they just strip it bit by bit moving functionality to metro. and most people think that metro is bad for desktop pcs I WANT CHOICE to disable metro and have start menu back without 3rd party software, its bad os design if you need 3rd party software just to make os work...

your example with file explorer is bad. file explorer is windowed software and you can resize it.. to fit more than one window, you can see task bar thus you can multitask. You have a choice you can maximize it to work in almost full screen or make it take any space on your screen.. metro and all the metro appz is waste of screen space they have more empty space (that could be used for something useful) than information.. everything is hidden and not intuitive... its opposite of what ribbon interface is where is where everything you need most is before your eyes.

Metro to me is back to dos.. single window single task.

 

[DooRules]

Most people it would seem have made the decision for themselves that metro is crap.No big mystery there at all.

You may like metro but you are in the minority bud. I guess you are having a hard time with that for some silly reason.

 

[SIW2]

This is for Cokie:

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

 

[Kari]

Don't want to type these again so to join this discussion I just quote two of my posts from earlier today, from two different threads:

I have never been a fan of touch screens, except when using a tablet.

All my laptops and desktops both home and at work have Windows 8, none of them having a touch screen as I like my displays to be about 80 cm (1.6 feet) from my eyes making a touch screen impractical.

One reason why I like windows 8 is the Start Screen and its flexibility. It is so extremely easy and fast to use with a scroll wheel mouse; no longer do I have to click and click and click through folder hierarchy in Start Menu to find what I need, now everything I need to access is there in a wink of an eye and one click.

If the 8.1 a.k.a Blue has a Windows 7 style Start button and menu, it will be the first feature in Windows 8 I would like to disable as totally useless.

Seems I belong to minority here, too .

Native Windows 8 Apps I use daily:

• Mail
• Calendar
• Messaging
• Weather
• News
• IE

Third party Windows Apps I use daily:

• FilmOn (UK TV)
• TuneIn (Global radio)
• BBC World News
• BBC Tech News
• CNN
• Ilta-sanomat (news from Finland)
• Tom's Harware (tech news)
• Wikipedia
• Google

 

[SIW2]

If the figures are from Soluto users - they are not necessarily representative of users as a whole. They might be - or they might not.

Nevertheless, posting up I do a, b and c does not negate the article. The article does not claim all users do x and y. It is about averages.

 

[Coke Robot]

So then why want Windows 8 then if it's so terrible and restrictive of "choice?"

 

[pparks1]

THERE WAS NO "CHOICE" TAKEN OUT OF WINDOWS 8. That is perception, not reality. The REALITY is is that there is a functioning UI there that is better than or equal to the one before it.

Well, in all previous versions of Windows you had the new choice and the old classic choice. In this version you won't have that choice. So, I would argue a choice was removed. As to whether or not you feel it's better than the one before it, that is up for you to decide. I find the new start screen and the new apps an absolute horror. Don't use them at all. They are terrible as far as I am concerned.

 

[fourthofjuly]

So then why want Windows 8 then if it's so terrible and restrictive of "choice?"

Some of us were probably just a victim of false assumption or were misinformed. We purchased Win 8 with great expectations. But we were disappointed and got stuck with it. So we joined Eight Forums in search of help on how to make Win 8 work the way Windows used to be. Luckily, we found some answers.

 

[labeeman]

So then why want Windows 8 then if it's so terrible and restrictive of "choice?"

Some of us were probably just a victim of false assumption or were misinformed. We purchased Win 8 with great expectations. But we were disappointed and got stuck with it. So we joined Eight Forums in search of help on how to make Win 8 work the way Windows used to be. Luckily, we found some answers.

That is the very reason I joined Eight Forums to make my laptop usable and to see if Metro could be removed form the system as I considered it a full screen AD from M$ alas it looks to be impossible. I will upgrade to Windows 7 if Window 8.1 is any thing close to what I am hearing just a little eye candy.

 

[XweAponX]

Well, in all previous versions of Windows you had the new choice and the old classic choice. In this version you won't have that choice. So, I would argue a choice was removed. As to whether or not you feel it's better than the one before it, that is up for you to decide. I find the new start screen and the new apps an absolute horror. Don't use them at all. They are terrible as far as I am concerned.

Actually in Windows 7, we did NOT. The Start Menu was all blocked in to the corner, and unlike Vist-Shi'ite, it could not be expanded out. We could however make it look Buttugly like Windows XP with no Theme Shell

 

[goodintentions]

So then why want Windows 8 then if it's so terrible and restrictive of "choice?"

Some of us were probably just a victim of false assumption or were misinformed. We purchased Win 8 with great expectations. But we were disappointed and got stuck with it. So we joined Eight Forums in search of help on how to make Win 8 work the way Windows used to be. Luckily, we found some answers.

That is the very reason I joined Eight Forums to make my laptop usable and to see if Metro could be removed form the system as I considered it a full screen AD from M$ alas it looks to be impossible. I will upgrade to Windows 7 if Window 8.1 is any thing close to what I am hearing just a little eye candy.

Haha, sensationalist much?

 

[HOODY]

1. Start Menu X = start button
2. 8gadgets = W7 gadgets
3. Fadetaskbar = glass like W7 task bar
4. W7 games pack = all old Win games

So yeah I just love my W8 Pro

I ONLY got it anyway back in Oct when I got the deal for $15, because of a new laptop, and I had W7 home premium and wanted a pro version, W7 pro was more than I wanted to pay.

btw a new start menu contender for W8 is this one. Start Menu Reviver it actually looks like what MS should have done to start with, as it uses their own icons and for those with touch screens it even works with that.

 

[Kari]

That is the very reason I joined Eight Forums to make my laptop usable and to see if Metro could be removed form the system as I considered it a full screen AD from M$ alas it looks to be impossible. I will upgrade to Windows 7 if Window 8.1 is any thing close to what I am hearing just a little eye candy.

Let me try to understand this: A user wants to go back to Windows 7 because although his Windows 8 works well and does exactly what Seven can do, it has this evil feature which a user needs never to see and use, which can be completely bypassed and be forgotten? The knowledge of this evil thing existing is enough, it's not enough to do the few simple things to prevent this evil never to show itself again?

I am sorry for asking this but doesn't that sound like paranoiac?

 

[SIW2]

his Windows 8 works well and does exactly what Seven can do...it has this evil feature which a user needs never to see and use ... which can be completely bypassed and be forgotten?... The knowledge of this evil thing existing is enough

Did he say that?

but doesn't that sound like paranoiac?

They are your words.

Here's the thing:

Just because you are not paranoid - that doesn't mean they are not out to get you.