Out of Pod Experience

Having just installed Windows 8, my view is:

Metro UI = pain
Underlying OS = faster, snappier, better

So, I uninstalled all the Metro apps and now I use it like Windows 7. The Metro UI is just a flashier start button, that's it. I'd like to remove it and I'll get round to installing a 3rd party app to do it if MS don't bring back the registry switch that disabled it in the pre-release version. Other than that, once you know where to find things, it is a lot easier. Top Tip: In Desktop, move your mouse to bottom left and then right click over the Metro Start large icon. Instant control panel and admin tool goodness.

Oh, and Creative are behind the power curve (as usual) with XiFi drivers for Windows 8. I do find it funny that Microsoft's drivers work and Creative's don't, but then I cry every time Creative buy another company that makes better products than them, just so they can remove the competition and maintain their almost-monopoly (apologies for rant, but you'd have thought that they'd have learnt how to do drivers after 20 years of trying).

Thread moved from GD to OOPE - ISD Type40.

What? 3.1 kinda sucked. I don't remember any controversy over the task bar in 95, 95 was like the messiah and a major success. Really, I mean half way through the life of 3.1, many of us were still booting DOS 6 to avoid windows gui crashing etc. And really that was more so for games as 3.1 was more hobby-ish apart from writing and cataloging documents, while Redhat was coming along nicely back then and I even still have that first boxed edition floating around somewhere. But the task bar? Even Redhat picked up a taskbar under KDE etc. The only real issues were that 95 was still crashing; if one app locked-up it would crash the whole system. And that you had to reinstall the OS every year or it would turn to oatmeal.

But the taskbar and windows start button were made for a desktop computer, it worked well for that, though I still prefer minimalist gui's like widowmaker or blackbox, myself, but this set-up works... provided active desktop is off. Metro isn't for the PC, there is no PC environment like it and there are quite a many environments made over the years. No similarities until you look at tablets and smartphone OS's at least. My $1200 desktop PC isn't a smartphone... I'm never going to be reaching my arm up to swipe at the monitor, ever. It's just pointless bloatware and needs to be removed.

The reason for Metro is because people continue to place shortcuts and FILES(!?!?) onto their Desktop. In a corporate environment, this is not ideal. The Desktop cannot provide sliders for when a user who really loves their desktop, finally puts that first shortcut or file that simply cannot be displayed on the desktop because their desktop has every single spot populated with icons.

So... Microsoft MADE the start button a desktop. Ta-Da. This is what everyone does anyways... but when Microsoft finally pulls it off, people complains. Just like UAC ,although I will admit that Vista's implementation was terrible. People wanted to be less pwnable by the dangerous interwebs and what did "experts" recommend in Vista... disable UAC immediately.

I will state that the interface is difficult initially, but after 2-3 days, I'm moving around just as fast as before. I also dig the new keyboard shortcuts...

Also, since Microsoft is going after the 'ecosystem' that Google is building and Apple has, I suspect that the Metro interface will be here to stay, which is why Microsoft didn't include a way to disable Metro themselves.

This is such an absolutely absurd and ignorant statement that I can only imagine you're trolling at this point..

Vista right now is almost on par with win 7 in performance and capability..

Why are you nubs so obsessed with windows 3.1? The truly hot spot was 3.11...

Forced migration? Excuse me but what are you talking about?

So where's this forced migration you talked about?

I'll type slowly as you obviously missed it the first time.

When we moved from 3.11 to 95, the option existed for users to cross over on their own terms (Inclusion of Program Manager). They build a bridge for those users and they came over eventually with minimal fuss.

Now, we are completely removing prior methods and forcing people to like it or lump it. No bridge.

Last time it was CCP deleting everyone's boot.ini if they weren't up to date on the operating system

I reluctantly switched to Win7 from XP due to lack of support for anything beyond DirectX9, after getting a DX11 video card in late 2010. Otherwise, I would still be using XP.
There are things that annoy me in Win7 even today, after 2+ years of usage, things that did not annoy me in XP.
Stuff like the OS not remembering left-open explorer window size and position on screen between reboots, or randomly deciding to do auto-sorts when more files show up vs appending them at the end or vice-versa on each reboot, and other minor nitpicks.

I use Win7 with "classic windows" look, manually tweaked further to look and feel almost like Win98SE.
Can I do that in Win8 ?
From what I read here, it's at least theoretically possible, but I am not 100% sure.

If yes, I'll get it. Eventually. After at least SP1. Preferably SP2. No rush. I'm no early adopter of any new software/hardware, I wait for others to get bumrushed by security flaws (software) and less-than-optimal initial revisions (hardware), then purchase stuff after plenty of reviews with some serious usage time are out there.

If not, I'll wait until I have no choice (DX12 or whatnot else only available on some specific Win OS for whatever hardware I'll be buying in the more distant future) and get whatever the oldest OS they have out by then that supports it (probably at least a Win9, or maybe even Win10, for all I know).