SG Broadband Community

These are always good for some heated discussions . I've had it since beta, always running as a VM. I've let lots of people connect to it and try it, mainly to gauge their reaction. Now that it's been released for sale and some people are starting to buy units with it installed, I've been getting some strong (and not surprising) feedback.

They hate it. I do too.

The interface is not intuitive. It may well be when using touch screens, but I know of no one who has purchased a touch screen. Don't get me wrong- I understand its purpose on tablets, and that's fine. Swiping, tapping, etc. But in a conventional environment with a mouse or touchpad, it just plain sucks. The absolute number 1 complaint is the removal of the start menu from the desktop. People want it, period. It's sad that MS is so arrogant that they refuse to offer this feature at least as an option. If you like Metro and the All Apps menus, that's great- you're all set. But if you don't, why not let users have what THEY want, not what MS wants?

I've read so many posts on other forums with the Pro-Metro faction telling everyone that they're morons, dinosaurs, etc., and the continual insistence that "the desktop is still their- it's the same". It's not the same. The desktop is still there, but it has been stripped of its functionality. I have watched first hand as new users get into windows that they cannot figure out how to get out of. Watched them struggle to even install software.

Yes, I know that thankfully there are 3rd party apps out there to give you the start menu back, some work better than others, but I have to wonder how long before MS makes these unsable? Maybe that's a stretch, but I could see that happening.

So, I'm wondering what others have experienced? My prediction is that this will go down as one of the epic marketing failures of all time.

twwabw wrote: So, I'm wondering what others have experienced? My prediction is that this will go down as one of the epic marketing failures of all time.

I share your view. It's been my view for a while (been running it since last springs beta too)...that it's a decent tablet OS....or a convertible laptop OS...and perhaps for a few home users a decent OS for an all in one touch screen monitor based PC.

Since 99% of my customers are SMB (small to medium businesses).....we've not had to deal with Windows 8 yet. We control the purchases of computers for our clients...either directly through us...in which case we get them an HP Business Desktop Elite DC series....or Lenovo Stinkpad, or a Dell Optiplex or or Latitude or Precision....or we'll configure a Dell cart for them and e-mail them the cart. In which case they'll get one of the above Dells. And as you know...the good business grade computers will be coming with Windows 7 Pro for years to come.

I'm very much in agreement with you...."Why couldn't Microsoft give us the choice/option of flipping back the classic start menu/desktop". They did a big explorer/GUI change when Windows XP came out....on an unbuckle you'd just have a blank desktop with a recycle bin, and a funky start menu. But you could go flip on the old desktop features and flip the start menu to the classic type.

Well we'll see what happens after a service pack...maybe they'll listen. But I believe this will be similar to Vista...the business market en large will basically bypass it...so I really won't have to worry about it.
I do hate the fact of having to turn to a 3rd party utility for altering the shell/explorer. In the past I've seen those utilities make for a difficult OS repair of some sh|t hits the fan. So far the ninite one looks decent though, if I have to use one.

My first reaction to Metro was, "great for tablets and touchscreens, sucks for desktops."

My view has changed after having used Windows 8 for a couple weeks. IMHO, trying out the new OS for a few minutes or hours is not enough time to learn how to use it.

I setup 5 win 8 laptops over a 2 day period for clients and I learned an awful lot by doing that. By the 5th laptop, setup & customization went 10 times faster. I had learned the ins and outs of Metro.

I have it on my own main desktop now and I've found that I don't need the Start menu really. I have a shortcut to control panel on the desktop and my browsers pinned to the taskbar. I only use a few other programs & it's easy to just move the cursor to a corner to get to the start screen where those programs are pinned. There's no start screen clutter for me, just the programs I use and want.

For my clients that want a "programs start menu" I just do this:
https://www.speedguide.net/forums/ ... Start-Menu

I would never use win8 for my business clients, only home users.

We have zero plans for implementing at client sites either. The loss of productivity would be costly.

It would have been a heck of a lot better if MS implemented a detection feature. No touchscreen- then boot to a Win 7 style desktop. They could have also given user's the option to choose as well. I paid the $5 for Start8 and have been happy thus for with the OS.

I agree with you all! Sticking with 8 so I can learn it more

YeOldeStonecat wrote: I'm very much in agreement with you...."Why couldn't Microsoft give us the choice/option of flipping back the classic start menu/desktop".

Because they cant make teh windows store and the metro apps work with the old start menu, and MS wants ppl to buy a ton of apps.

Over my dead body will it be installed on anything I take care of.

YARDofSTUF wrote:Because they cant make teh windows store and the metro apps work with the old start menu, and MS wants ppl to buy a ton of apps.

Yet the 3rd party stuff like Ninites start menu can let it work? Microsoft can't figure that out?

YARDofSTUF wrote:Because they cant make teh windows store and the metro apps work with the old start menu, and MS wants ppl to buy a ton of apps.

Most of the apps are free. The real money for MS is getting people to sign up for a MS account (Hotmail or MSN) and then have them use that as their login rather than a local account. The apps they have preinstalled sync with their account. And any newly installed apps use that account. And MS collects/stores their data in the cloud and can turn all the stats into valuable marketing data.

RaisinCain wrote:It would have been a heck of a lot better if MS implemented a detection feature. No touchscreen- then boot to a Win 7 style desktop. They could have also given user's the option to choose as well.

I like this idea.

I don't know how many times I've started Internet Explorer (which I don't use) going for the start menu.
I have it on my work box and my home computer and I haven't added any custom start menus (yet).

It seems very schizophrenic, like its not sure what it wants to be.
Why would you ingrain the idea of of a start menu across 95, 98, nt4, 2000, me, xp, vista, win7, 2003 and 2008 and then say "fuggit we're all about touchscreens and tablets now"?

I can open the win8 chrome app or I can open chrome. I'm not sure what the advantage is to using the app? I guess I can open it 1/3 screen or 2/3 screen (yay I guess).

The non UI changes are great though. Time machine (without all the shmaltz), explorer is a lot nicer with the ribbon, natively mounting .iso's (finally)...all nice.
The Task manager is waaaay more informative.
IE10 even seems very good and fast though I don't use it very often at home, at work its still a must for Sharepoint and MS sites.
Ohh and Hyper-V, sweet though it breaks Virtualbox.

Overall I guess I like it and and the UI is more inconvenient than annoying.
SP1 will hopefully address and refine some of the UI issues.

I just watched this video, and this nails it. To a tee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Yet the 3rd party stuff like Ninites start menu can let it work? Microsoft can't figure that out?

Ninites doesnt care about MS store sales. If I remember right ninites alows the modern UI/metro to run so no functionality is broken, but a person isn't really going to be installing modern UI/metro apps if they are using a start button instead of the start screen. And MS wants those apps purchases.

TonyT wrote:Most of the apps are free.

For now. Its new, they need to build up interest in it.

YARDofSTUF wrote:Ninites doesnt care about MS store sales. If I remember right ninites alows the modern UI/metro to run so no functionality is broken, but a person isn't really going to be installing modern UI/metro apps if they are using a start button instead of the start screen. And MS wants those apps purchases.

It shouldn't matter...I don't see the relationship of a start button preventing apps from being purchased/installed/run. It's just a different presentation of explorer...that's all.

YeOldeStonecat wrote:It shouldn't matter...I don't see the relationship of a start button preventing apps from being purchased/installed/run. It's just a different presentation of explorer...that's all.

I bet MS thinks it matters. The more people use the modern UI, the more chances people will want apps. Supposedly MS made changes that hurt a couple of the earlier made start button addons as well.

Personally, the charms bar annoys me the most now. Trying to find the control panel the first time was a huge pain, and I didn't know about Windows key + C, but I didn't know the charms bar's name then either. lol I also didn't try typing "control panel" randomly on the start screen because I didn't know thats how searching went. And now that I do know how to get to the control panel, I don't like most of the options for reaching it and the other features.

With Windows 7 its 2 clicks, click Start, then click Control Panel. With Windows 8 the only somewhat decent option is right clicking on the start screen popup that you make hover in the corner, instead of clicking on it to bring up the start screen. I would rather have Windows key + C open the damned control panel.

Also twwabw, that video, the swipe gestures vs regular mouse movement thing on the touchpad would make me rage so much. Use Windows 8 and get reduced touchpad real estate, awesome, like it wasn't already cramped enough for my wookie paws. Are windows 8 gestures disableable(sp)?

Is it compatible with SOPHOS??

DoD announced today they are going Win 8, office 2013 and sharepoint 2013.

Wonder what they are using for exchange? Still waiting for my AKO email to switch over to exchange. Ill assume 2013.
Only good thing is win 8 works with CAC right out of the both without any crazy middleware like active client and importing certs. Only thing I liked so far

morbidpete wrote:DoD announced today they are going Win 8, office 2013 and sharepoint 2013.

Wonder what they are using for exchange? Still waiting for my AKO email to switch over to exchange. Ill assume 2013.
Only good thing is win 8 works with CAC right out of the both without any crazy middleware like active client and importing certs. Only thing I liked so far

Acronyms, ftw!