This will be Microsofts biggest ever flop, far bigger than Vista.

[vrosa]

I really liked the new PC Settings



{off topic }

 

[mcquicker]

I agree 100% with the first poster. In Win 8, MS has forgotten who brought them to where they are. It was the PC owners. The Metro feature is a idiotic for PC's and the missing shutdown button is doubly dumb. It takes at least three different events to shut down the machine. Give me a break. MS better have the Metro feature as an alternative to the regular desktop or guarantee, 85-90% of those new PC owners will jump ship to Apple. Again, the Metro feature is DOA for PC owners who actually WORK with their PC, not spend useless hours chatting on FB, etc.

 

[area 66]

And anyone with a warrant or not -- two words "patriot act"..

" Any data which is housed, stored or processed by a company, which is a U.S. based company or is wholly owned by a U.S. parent company, is vulnerable to interception and inspection by U.S. authorities "

 

[sandman]

I see a lot of user's are not like me, I explore and explore until I find every little trick and tip I can find ,shut down is how hard mouse cursor to the right lower corner bring up settings, power and mouse over it and pick shutdown. or use search to find programs or setting or Apps, setting or files and I can change the font in mine its still there in the Control Panel. I give it a month and everyone or most everyone will be saying wow great really like Windows 8. I believe after all it is not a finished product that is why we are all getting a chance to try it out give feedback etc. I am enjoying playing with all the new features and different ways to move around the system.

 

[mcquicker]

3 different moves to find the shutdown button? That is simply silly. I don't agree sandman. Don't agree at all. MS is going to lose market share by the millions unless the take care of their base, and their base is not mobile phones or tablets.

 

[mart4494]

3 different moves to find the shutdown button? That is simply silly. I don't agree sandman. Don't agree at all. MS is going to lose market share by the millions unless the take care of their base, and their base is not mobile phones or tablets.

Agree with mcquicker over the shutdown and many other negative posts round here. Doubt if MS will loose market share by the millions as they will simply introduce the OS via the OEM's. The OEM's will get the backlash and put the pressure on MS so doubt if Metro will stay for long. In the meantime, I really hope MS takes note of the many negative comments both here and the media over the Metro UI. If folks want to stick with Metro then fine but MS please also offer the classic look for those that prefer it. All things are personal preference in the PC world. If you like pinning stuff to the taskbar and it works for you then nothing wrong with that. If you prefer not to then that is also fine.

As far as cloud computing is concerned it's not for me and would I would feel negligent if I stored any confidential files outside of my immediate control with a third party, especially those that concerned clients that I deal with. So guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Certainly the feedback on the new look is either positive or negative, doesn't seem to any middle ground here. Just my $0.02 worth.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

3 different moves to find the shutdown button? That is simply silly. I don't agree sandman. Don't agree at all. MS is going to lose market share by the millions unless the take care of their base, and their base is not mobile phones or tablets.

Maybe not a solution for all, but use this gadget Desktop gadgets - Microsoft Windows Control system with clock works fine with 8

 

[Burgurne]

As for "shut down" Windows 8, I use Alt+F4 as allways. Has worked in every windows version I have had.

What annoys me more is the fact, that the tiles have to be so BIG. You can choose between BIG, BIGGER and REALLY BIG. Many of the tiles shows up in 2 or 3 colors, so nothing expencive art is lost if the tiles could get smaller.

 

[Pixel Eater]

I can't believe the comparisons to Vista and other flops. Those really were dysfunctional operating systems while in reality Windows 8 is humming along light and stable like never before. It's done wonders for my free craptop. In 24 hours I have for the most part come to see eye to eye with Metro and while I'm not swept away, I think it's basically good. Also I'm enjoying what seems to be refined cleartype and other UI enhancements.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Font Type and Size, not dpi

... and I can change the font in mine its still there in the Control Panel.

You can change the dpi.

Where is this window?

(Click picture for animation)


​

Here's the results of searching "Help" for "customize font".

​

 

[tseven]

I completely see your frustration. While there is one thing I completely enjoyed the improvements in speed and possibly memory but I don't know how long that will last once all the revisions or additions are in place. Using is annoying because while they claim you can work in one environment and never have to see the light of metro if you so do desire and on a desktop environment I wouldn't want to use metro unless it's with a touch capable monitor of course. But they are really making things difficult by putting the new programs on the start screen(metro) and when you launch it you'll be going into the desktop anyway which makes no sense. Then there's the fact that they removed a feature that is the starting point of windows (the start menu). They said before you can use one or the other or both. When I'm in the desktop environment I feel like I constantly have to use the metro interface the "charms" the search even with that dumb hidden menu at the start brings the search to the metro interface. I heard that they removed the read-only feature from windows XP they should add that back and fix the many other things making this a nightmare. On top of that after windows 8 consumer preview installs they don't ask if you want to boot to the metro or desktop it's kind of stuck in the metro view and then from there you can go to the desktop(something I don't appreciate) and the constant move to the metro interface to get to things will make people who want to do everything in the desktop environment feel annoyed. I'm a regular user that uses the computer for creative things and it annoys me already that I have to keep going into the metro interface to get simple things. I can't even go to the control panel and other stuff easily. They are just making things more difficult not easier.

On top of that with the new ribbon interface things are getting more and more cluttered. The metro is a mess and feels just as cluttered. Aesthetically it's not pleasing either. It's a nicer way of just saying that the new touch interface from microsoft is actually just a grid of boxes. Very disappointing. I hope they give fix up the interface for both desktop and metro. But I really hope they add back stuff we actually can use, to make our lives easier not harder. They needed to fix the superbar aesthetically but I don't think removing the start menu was something that should have been on their list to fix. Maybe they should be fixing that ugly blue hover effect on scrollbars or just that odd transparency effect on the windows themselves. Their typography is also lacking. The buttons need some work all the aero glassy, glossy, glowing effects are driving me insane. I appreciated the start menu however and they have taken it away. How nice. Change the design of the superbar change those bad and unclear hover effects for the pinned programs on the superbar but don't remove the button that basically holds the the links to all other parts of the computer.

 

[Coke Robot]

The thing that has potential of being confusing is the PC Settings app. There's a Control Panel on the Desktop, then a PC Settings app for the Start Screen and a few of the main settings from Control Panel in it. It makes no sense quite honestly. There MUST be a consolidated, metro designed, and commanding Control Panel or a PC Settings panel that has ALL the settings in it.

 

[srjh]

This is probably going to be the next Vista - in that it will be largely skipped by people sticking with 7 and waiting for 9. There's a bit in common with 98 and Me as well.

Maybe there's potential in it as a tablet OS, but as a desktop OS it's just awkward. I agree with almost all of the complaints so far. It feels a little bit like a game that's been poorly ported from consoles to PC, with token attempts to customise it that end up making it worse.

 

[Kat]

I'm getting used to it, but do miss the old Start menu.

Like some others have stated, I dislike a screen full of icons, and do not like everything pinned to the taskbar.

But, I enabled the old Win XP/Vista 'quick-launch' bar on the taskbar, and simply put all my shortcuts in there.

Like Win 7, you don't get the option to enable it, but must do so manually.

With that enabled, and the taskbar icon size set to 'small', I think I can live with the rest of the new interface.

As for its actual performance, I'm quite happy so far.

*EDIT* Posting on it now using the 'real' IE10.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Like some others have stated, I dislike a screen full of icons, and do not like everything pinned to the taskbar.

But, I enabled the old Win XP 'quick-launch' bar on the taskbar, and simply put all my shortcuts in there.

Kat, that is funny. Reminds me of this old video on XP dealing with cluttered icons.

[video=youtube;retyp3sEoPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=retyp3sEoPE[/video]

Metro could have 50 gazillion icons on there. Seriously, it's almost the same problem in that video. For some reason we're supposed to think this is progress? 8 on the tablet, great. Phone, great. Desktop? Ugh.

 

[cleanclothes]

I've enjoyed reading these posts, and after my own experience with the RC (been fiddling with it for a couple of days now) I've seen that two camps have formed. The "Metro is great because it's new and exciting, here's how to get it to work for you and you need it because if you don't you are a troglodyte", and the "where is my Start Menu, Metro looks like crap, I'm not going to buy this, where is my club my cave is cozy."

I have to agree with all of the nay-sayers and rest of the peanut gallery here, I love my club (I've learned how to use it since it was sprung on me back in say '95), I enjoy being a troglodyte, and the Metro interface is clunky- ill-conceived for a desktop- and I am afraid the wave of a very scary future.

This isn't an argument about Metro Style or Start Menus, this is about something that some of us in IT take for granted; conservative approaches to change. We like stability because it is something that we have broken and fixed a thousand times, and can (hopefully) help someone when they break it. We like to know (like myself who has his own company) how much this is going to cost in dollars of capital, training time, manpower. Metro is a radical departure (I think unnecessary) from that conservative business wisdom. I'm still of the old style camp of don't bring out a new OS, just get this one working D**N IT!

That being said, if I wanted a flashy in your face OS, I would buy a Mac. I do not buy Macs. I like my start menu, I like being a troglodyte, and I like being able to find things where they have generally been for nearly 20 years.

So I pull out my crystal ball and foresee an OEM based forced introduction of this OS with a huge backlash and "downgrade" options until Microsoft comes out with a cleanup version (at least they have the experience to do that from Vista). That and MS, unless they do "add-back" the basic start menu is going to face a really nasty nasty backlash from its real bread and butter which is the corporate customers.

I'm personally imagining with horror of having to retrain my 75 employees, my parents (who just joined us in the Win 7 world from Win 98), and my wife on the new interface; I can't imagine what IT departments with 1000's of users are saying right now. It was hard enough replacing Office 2003 with Office 2007, I was actually afraid some of my employees were going to start bleeding from their eyes.

But I can tell myself that my start menu will be back soon, that this is all just a RC and the Metro interface will become a switchable option and my cave will remain nice and cozy.

But if not, I'm afraid this is a flavor of Kool-Aid I just can't drink at this point, and definitely won't be serving at my parties. Which sucks, because I'm sure my Microsoft stock is going to tank horribly from this little hiccup. Enough of my doom and gloom.

P.S. Love the guts of the OS though, certainly seems to be snappy and quick! =)

 

[Spoons27]

Apple isn't killing the windows desktop but Microsoft is with this abomination.

 

[whest]

I haven't read all the answers, but i would say give it a go - I've have mine running excellently with a few minor alterations i didn't think were possible, but they are - for one there is a new menu in the bottom left of the screen - just right click in the corner (no less) and up pops a new menu bar with 15 handy shortcuts - ok this is how i resolved the missing start menu - there are also other ways listed on this site, but i like my way the best - first enable show hidden folders then go to the library folder (click windows explorer folder on the taskbar) right click in the middle of the folder, and select new, then library -name it - click the new library, and click include new folder - then browse to c drive - go down to program data > microsoft > windows > start menu - then just highlight programs, so it shows as the folder to select (down the bottom) and your done - ok go back to the task bar and open the explorer folder again and select the new library (start menu - whatever you named it as) - ok have a bit of a look then close -go back to task bar and right click the explorer folder and pin the start menu to it, and there you have it easy to locate - stable and well set out - every time you install anything its added to the folder.

 

[HPDeskjet]

Love the guts of the OS though, certainly seems to be snappy and quick! =)

That's the tragedy of forcing the Metro UI on to desktop/ laptop users. It is simply an inappropriate interface. Fine for a 10 inch tablet or smartphone, if all you want to do is check your mail, surf the web in a minimal fashion, play a few games in apps or listen to a bit of music. It's not suitable for a desktop on which you want to get any REAL work done.

The new Windows 8 features, and I'm not talking about the Metro side of things, are actually very good. Less CPU use and it is faster than Win7.

 

[Golden]

Who needs the Metro. I am going back to the old days and work with keyboard shortcuts. Here are my favorites (there are a lot more): Try Win+X that a member posted earlier. It is really neat.


Desktop ---> Win+D
Metro ----> CTL+ESC
Charms ----> Win+C
Explorer ----> Win+E
Search ----> Win+F
Settings ----> Win+I
App Bar ----> Win+Z
Closing Apps ----> Windows + CTRL + TAB
System Programs ----> Win+X

Nice Wolfgang. Is there a shortcut for shutting down? What on earth is the quickest way to just shut-down the system?