Anyway to get Win 8 to go directly to the desktop or to the all apps

[Washington kBoy]

I complained about the feasibility of Metro without a touch screen for about a week. Not wanting to go all-in, I had installed it first on my laptop and was trying to use the touch pad. (It never occurred to me that I seem not to be able to use a touch pad in the first place!) As soon as I hooked up a mouse with a scroll wheel, navigation through Win8 was simple and very intuitive. I'e told most everyone--you're going to think you hate it at first, but you don't....trust me.

 

[R0bR]

As soon as I hooked up a mouse with a scroll wheel, navigation through Win8 was simple and very intuitive. I'e told most everyone--you're going to think you hate it at first, but you don't....trust me.

The scroll wheel makes it much better for sure. Also, some scroll wheels have a left and right clicker buttons built in and you can program those to be App list left and Charms right. I'll probably pick up a gesture mouse so that I can just mimic touch on it.

 

[R0bR]

I don't think it will be free when out of beta will it?

Could be, ObjectDock, Fences and Logon Studio are free so there is a possibility.

 

[TheGrantFitz]

Start8 has an option, check it out!

 

[Hopachi]

It works well - have been using it and and some variations for a while.

Yes!
I run it in a VM and the start menu is back + goes direct to desktop.
As it was mentioned, the ribbon remains and you can still mount iso's.