Wow the Windows 8 debate, how I wish Microsoft was willing to listen to "Us" the customers on this one.
We have been working around with Windows 8 for the last couple of months. In fact, I recently purchased an HP 21.5" LED multi-touch monitor for using touch interface with testing Windows 8 in that manner. So far, I'm very disappointed, and this is coming from a few different people in our office, tech people and non-technical customers alike, who are just flat out frustrated by it.
On our touch monitor, even though it is incredibly accurate and great to use, I can NEVER get the charms bar (where you can actually go to shut down the computer properly) nor the Start window area on the other corner of the screen to come up. Pretty much Microsoft failed at making this thing focused for touch devices if a 21.5" widescreen touch device doesn't have enough resolution and accuracy to bring up those corners properly without having to go to a normal keyboard and mouse to be able to bring up the start menu or shut down your system!
The Metro UI, as it will always be referred to even if Microsoft has moved away from that moniker, I think is a good move for Microsoft in trying to unify their interface and platform across a range of devices. However, users of traditional desktops still will find working with this interface very confusing and limiting as well, so they shouldn't be FORCED to operate within it constantly, which you do have to regularly. Additionally, programs that run within the Metro UI separately from desktop applications (i.e. Internet Explorer) are going to be a terrible pain for people. All of these apps continue to run in the background even when you somehow figure out a way of getting out of that app! And yes, trying sometimes to figure out how to get out of them is a pain because there is no Close, there is no Minimize, no way to move it off the screen really. This means a ton of system resources are slowly going to get chewed up running in the background that people don't know about. This results in a slower computer and even stability issues.
With Windows 7 and other previous version of Windows we can disable boot-time programs running in the background with several different tools to help optimize efficiency and give the best performance possible, but with Windows 8 it seems like they've put an end to this because even if you remove the apps from boot-time startup with usual means like msconfig, there are so many other ways that several apps will automatically start up running in the background. You're stuck with them, even when you go through the means to actually close them.
For me as a computer technician, I can understand some of the choices that Microsoft has made in their designing a "universal" operating system experience across all their product lines, but I think they are going to lose more money than they ever could have imagined with Windows 8 because they are completely foresaking their largest customer segment - normal, simple, desktop users like home and business users - in an attempt to make things more "pretty" with their other consumer lines like Windows Phone and XBox. I feel that steps Microsoft has taken to disable features or steps that would make Windows 8 more friendly for normal desktop usage is just absurd and too much like a dictatorship trying to push us towards doing and thinking all in a new more limited way for the sake of selling more of their other products.
Finally, I think one of the most frustrating things for me about Windows 8, besides the invasion of privacy that is SmartScreen (
read TomsHardware about this feature) is that everything from the Control Panel, to shutting down, to finding a way to access the Windows Explorer to view your files, all takes at LEAST one additional step that wasn't there before, often times two or three additional steps. Wasn't the point of this redesign to make things
easier? Then why should it take having to call up Microsoft customer service, a GPS, a goat, and an overnight bag to be able to explore your entire computer and finally discover your way to finding the Shut Down button on your operating system?
