Windows 8, I’m warming up to you

**Night Hawk** · 26 Mar 2012

The following isn't the sentiments expressed by many note.

Windows 8, I’m warming up to you

By Ken Hess
March 26, 2012, 10:00am PDT

Summary: Windows 8 and Server 8 sport the new Metro interface. You might hate it now but you’ll get used to it and you’ll like it.

Windows Server 8 Server Manager

It’s going to take a little time to find everything in Windows 8’s new interface but I think I’m warming up to Metro and its idiosyncrasies. I finally successfully installed Windows Server 8 into a XenServer 5.6 hosted VM. I gave my new Server 8 VM 2 CPUs and 2GB RAM. Alternatively, Windows 8 Desktop installed easily into VMware Workstation 8. I also installed Windows 8 Desktop onto a physical system so that I could test on real hardware as well.

I think I might actually like the Metro interface now that I’ve had a chance to test it, be mad at it, curse it to Hell and then to try it again with a sense of “this is the way of the future for MS operating systems.”

It’s time, as I once told a coworker about 15 years ago, “Put on your big boy pants and learn to use this system.” I was referring to his resistance at learning Windows NT 4.0 after I upgraded his system from Windows NT 3.51. My attitude was soon dampened by the sound of a Director informing my Domain Admin group that we had to stay every night until all of the desktops had 64MB RAM in them. Most of our NT 3.51 systems had 32MB RAM.

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**crawfish** · 26 Mar 2012

That article reads like the typical prose of an author who wants to continue writing about Microsoft's latest and greatest idea of the moment.

**whs** · 26 Mar 2012

Metro and its idiosyncrasies.

Just imagine the comments if we had worked with the Metro interface since 10 years and they would now introduce the traditional Start menu. I can just see all the comments how terrible and difficult it is to use it - because the Metro was soooo easy. Just think of the terrible Start Properties and All Programs.

**Night Hawk** · 26 Mar 2012

Couldn't have said it better myself! There is some indication now that there will be a followup or better known as RC available to examine prior to the RTM. I was just to post that article.

Hopefully the RC will be more of an eye catcher for sure! Maybe then we can get a better idea of what MS actually has in mind for the finished Windows there!

**crawfish** · 26 Mar 2012

Originally Posted by whs

Metro and its idiosyncrasies.

Just imagine the comments if we had worked with the Metro interface since 10 years and they would now introduce the traditional Start menu. I can just see all the comments how terrible and difficult it is to use it - because the Metro was soooo easy. Just think of the terrible Start Properties and All Programs.

LOL. As I've written here several times, I thought the Start Menu was horrible the first time I saw it in an NT4 beta back in 1995-96, and I've never wavered in my opinion that it was completely unusable as the primary program launcher/organizer. I didn't need to compare it to anything. It was horrible because it was hard to navigate, and it went away when anything was selected from it, forcing one to start the navigation all over again. Anyone who has suffered with the Start Menu all this time simply couldn't have cared very much about how they use their computer, because superior alternatives have always been available. Before Windows 7, I used something called jetToolbar. The only thing Microsoft has ever done well in this area is the Windows 7 taskbar, and they hit that one out of the park. Yet everyone here posts about the Start Menu, as if that tedious-to-navigate, always-closing, start-over-from-scratch creation is the be all and end all of Windows, the thing to compare to. I really wish I could find one discussion where the Start Menu doesn't come up.

**Night Hawk** · 26 Mar 2012

Well that's where the real beef is! The new Metro touchscreen interface is a large swapoff from the usual expected Start menu>Programs or All Programs with a mouse compared to a full scroll screen where you can "still" use a mouse to click the large buttons but is geared for touchscreen application.

Unlike the typical windows Windows of closing up one window to go back to the previous or use of a back arrow your only option is to hover in the bottom left corner for each thing. Even the new repair tools on the 8 dvd see additional steps added there before you can get to the new Automatic repair no longer seen as Startup repair option or command prompt.

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**Vince53** · 26 Mar 2012

I have been assimilated!

**crawfish** · 26 Mar 2012

Originally Posted by Night Hawk

Unlike the typical windows Windows of closing up one window to go back to the previous or use of a back arrow your only option is to hover in the bottom left corner for each thing.

These multiple hidden hotspots make me want to cry. I had to turn off Aero peek because I was always activating it unintentionally, and from what I understand, they've multiplied, and they are essential to the "Metro" thing. I didn't discover them in the brief time I had Windows 8 in a VM, probably for the same reason people with desktops spanning multiple monitors have complained the hotspots are only one pixel in size and impossible to hit. At this rate, Windows 8 will be the OS that makes a Windows PC as undesirable as a Windows phone or the upcoming tablet, not exactly the unification they had in mind.

**Colonel Travis** · 26 Mar 2012

Good Lord. When I see that repair tool screen or almost anything else in Metro, I see this:

**Coke Robot** · 27 Mar 2012

Yeah! Put on those big boy pants ya whiny little girl!....