My Wife's Boss purchased a gorgeous touch screen Lenovo all in one Windows 8 PC for in the office recently. They could not figure out how to get the bluetooth mouse and keyboard to work initially, and so I got called into help. When I first looked at this machine, which has a gorgeous 27 inch touch screen display, I thought, "My, what a nice computer!" I got the mouse and keyboard connected for them, and walked them through what I thought would be the basics. For my part, I actually found myself enjoying having touch for an option, but then I started realizing, that it just was not working all that good. For instance. Being someone who has used Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard for close to a year now, I could not figure out how to get the start button to display with just my finger, or the charms bar for that matter. I could not figure out how to close an app by dragging down. I swear, I would move my mouse to the corner with all kinds of drag and gesture, etc., but no matter what I did, I could not get it to work. Eventually, I was like, "Holy Shxx, what a terrible design..." and I resigned to using the mouse and keyboard the way I always had. My wife's boss asked me to bring the start menu back, so I installed classic shell for her, and when I left, she had a smile on her face.
This really got me to thinking. I don't use classic shell. I use Windows 8.1 with no 3rd party tweaks on a daily basis, on our 2 home, play computers. My work computers all run windows 7. I still have the same opinion. Whether you like the new interface or you don't, or whether you are sort of neutral like myself about it... None of these change the fact that the OS should have been designed with the end user having a lot more power of choice. When I realized that the "Touch" features, don't even work that good on a touch machine, this really further drove home the point for me. Had Microsoft released the OS to users, and given them a choice of touch based interface, vs mouse/keyboard of old, then this whole thing could have gone down differently. People would have embraced the OS I believe. People would have given props to Microsoft. Instead, people in general just don't like it. It has been about a year, and I still have yet to talk with anyone in person, who actually likes it, outside of these forums.
One of these days, Microsoft will realize the following equation:
Choice = Win = Happy customers
No Choice = Lose = Feeling trapped = pissed off customers
I have been called at least 8 times this year by a friend or family member, who cannot even figure out how to turn off their machine. To me, this says something...