So basically without downloading the beta and trying it out yet I'm getting the impression this is going to be another Vista.

I'd say try it and form your own opinion. I don't have an undying hatred for Metro (not now, maybe later) because I think it's interesting. The charms bar (now that i know its there) has been pretty useful as well.

Interesting is my current opinion of it

Shortcuts!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831491.aspx#BKMK_keys

I threw it on my tablet last night. It's definitely better than the dev preview. Still can't get the accelerometer in my tablet to work (which blows because I use it in portrait for OneNote, but landscape for most else) with old Windows 7 drivers unfortunately. For a tablet, the mail and calender apps were nice. On a desktop, I'd obviously still use Outlook. Still not sold on desktop use though, but I've also had zero desire to try it on a desktop yet.

I've had this on VB for a while now, playing around when I'm bored and I'm pretty much of the opinion that for casual users and home use it'll be great. Most people will probably get away with never going to the "old" desktop.

But they seriously need a way to turn off metro for professional use, just thinking about having to use it at work scares the crap outta me, it really wouldn't work.

I wouldn't be suprised to find the option somewhere because microsoft must know the limitations it brings are extremely frigging annoying.

I guess the real question is how out of touch Ballmer is, thus far he has backed Metro and there is no sign of him backing down. Perhaps if Win8 comes out with it still in and loses massive amounts of enterprise contracts the board will remove him.

I agree poley, most people will be fine with only using metro. Sure you have to 'learn' new gestures to navigate metro, but its nothing too crazy. Im curious to see how it goes for businesses and enterprise systems.

Also, it all makes a lot more sense once you accept that desktop is now its own application

No, it doesn't make sense. Metro should be its own application, not the desktop. (And by desktop I mean the place where you can see and move around your windows - not Explorer specifically.) There's almost no attempt at integrating the two environments, and trying to use "desktop" apps along with "metro" apps is a major hassle.

I still haven't gotten all my thoughts on Win8 organized yet, but I'm building up to a big rant eventually. Microsoft is making major blunders all over the place, and it's really disappointing. Bleh...

why not integrate metro into the desktop with the metro interface replacing the wallpaper, that sounds like it could work.

Except it's not, Metro is clearly the application.

I don't feel like rebooting and diving back in to Win8, but I wonder what killing explorer.exe does to metro.

For a casual user, metro wont be that bad. I think the real issue is how it will work with Enterprise machines. ---edit--- And in case it's not painfully clear, this is just my opinion. Assuming MS includes a quickstart tutorial of the new interface, I can't imagine it being too difficult to get the hang of.

Well, on a tablet with no keyboard hooked up at least, you're stuck in task manager land until you restart it. It kills all gesture support, so you can't get back to Metro because none of the gestures work anymore. It even kills the onscreen keyboard, so your only way back is to go browse for C:\Windows\explorer.exe in the task manager Run menu.

Bleh.

It's kind of funny that Microsoft is changing the Windows logo back to a window now that Windows is abandoning windows.

(...windows.)

looks more like the metro tiles anyway

Oh, here's another major annoyance: I can't "snap" metro apps to the sides of my screen - I can only use them in full screen. Because my monitor only goes up to 1280x1024.

@CM: Have you looked at the Music app? It's a horrible horrible disgusting wretched putrid filthy imitation of the Zune software. Which is sad, because Zune does "Metro" better than anything in Windows 8.

It would be nice if metro & desktop were merged more smoothly.

THINGS THEY SHOULD DO BECAUSE I SAY SO

• Ditch Aero glass in favor of solid metro colors
• Option to choose which environment you boot to - Metro or Desktop
• 'in between' metro elements (ex - a popup launcher for search )

http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/25/2824064/incredible-mockup-of-windows-desktop-gone-metro

I would love the UI to look like that.

Personally, I love Metro. I've loved that UI ever since the days of the Zune, and now with the combo of the Lumia 900 and WP7, it looks even more attractive. As an iOS user, it tempts me to switch. But that's on Windows Phone. For the desktop it will take a lot of getting used to, but I'm glad Microsoft is at least trying new things. If you don't like it, well, Windows 7 is still a click away.

MS Flight is a fantastic game, but the DLC is way the hell too expensive.

Diversity in product line, and they can't help the lack of x86/64 support on ARM as much.

This is what they would be doing if they were smart. What they're actually doing is rebasing their operating system monoculture. 'Diversity' would mean taking advantage of the strengths of a variety of platforms and input devices.

So, right click where the start menu would be. It gives you a menu with most of the options you would use the old start menu for.
Why they don't just leave in the start menu and have it accessed like this I have no idea.

Ars Technica just pointed out yet another usability issue that is bound to piss me off more than anything else. For those who use multiple monitors, expect to be pissed off. Those hot corners that are basically required for getting things done? They only work on the primary monitor, meaning that you'll run your mouse towards a corner, only to completely miss it and move to the other monitor.

In addition, the edges of Metro on a mouse are supposed to scroll, to make that process simple. Totally doesn't work in a multiple monitor environment.

" It's like using the Skyrim UI as a replacement for Windows Explorer." [/COLOR]

[edit: God I hate our stupid forum software]

"It's like using the Skyrim UI as a replacement for Windows Explorer."

Like I said before, the piss-poor multi-monitor support is really going to hurt developer adoption of Metro. Microsoft better hope that halfwit web devs pick up on it because real app developers aren't going to.

Oh don't forget, the hot corners are required for the desktop side as well. It's how you bring up the start window and charms so you, ya know, can shut down.

Or so you can reboot back into Windows 7.

I like how people propose this as a viable alternative to using Windows 8. Everyone knows you'll be forced to upgrade eventually, be it Win8 or Win9 (and I highly doubt Win9 is going to forgo Metro). Even XP, the Windows that Won't Die (TM), is quickly becoming outdated.

Applications are the main driver. Games have always had a far more aggressive upgrade path than normal, and even game developers are 6 years behind Microsoft's latest APIs. Considering how hostile Windows 8 is to developers, I think it will be a very long time before anybody is forced to upgrade. Like, switching to ReactOS kind of long time.

I don't think it's going to matter though. I don't think I've encountered a single person who is interested in developing a Metro app. I think they're going to end up killing Metro in SP1.

I doubt they'll kill it, since everyone likes it for touch/tablets. I bet you'll be able to disable it though.

I dunno, if Win8 crashes and burns they might give Metro the heave-ho, or at least a major work-over.

Paul Thurrott supporting Microsoft in the face of overwhelming, accurate criticism? How strange.

Microsoft is not restyling Explorer/desktop. For a reason. Some huge crowd of people failed an intelligence test last week when some tech enthusiast posted a Photoshop-created image of what a Metro-like Explorer/desktop environment could look like to a tech blog, and they all swooned over it. "Microsoft should hire that guy!" one particularly clueless commenter added, pretty much summing up the feelings of the gullible audience.

...

omfg guys, look at this Photoshop-created image of what a Metro-like Steam could look like. Valve should hire this guy!!

Right, forgot it was taboo to make decent points about ****ty complaints. "What, the start menus gone? I NEED IT BACK RIGHT NOW"

No, it's taboo to make ****ty points about users making valid complaints that their future operating system is no longer sufficient for a very common use case (a desktop computer or laptop with a mouse and no touchscreen.) That entire article is bull. It basically boils down to this: use it, suck it up, and if you don't like it then **** off*. Like Thurrott wrote, "I am distressed at the absolute lack of sophistication I see here."

(* He didn't actually say **** off. He said 'send Microsoft feedback,' which - one quarter before RTM - basically means the same thing.)

But, for the most part, they aren't valid complaints. Valid complaints are incredibly different than *****ing about something being different. The shutdown button moved, so what? It's in the settings menu, so what? play with the preview and now you know its there.

Will they clean it up before release? I sure hope so. Sure there are legitimate UI complaints and things that don't work well. Ive already posted about those.

They can't change how the OS looks without changing how it's used.

I was gonna try and give it a go again, and just stay out of Metro as much as possible.

But then I opened Visual Studio again. I have *never* been so disoriented by a software update before. VS10 has about 1800 different icons. I can't even tell what half of them are supposed to be on my ****ty monitor, but without those colorful little blobs it takes at least two or three times longer to find anything. I can't possibly imagine that the VS11 developers are eating the dog food, and their UX team probably designed the whole thing in Blend and can't imagine why people don't like it.

VS11:


VS10:


It's not just the menus, either. Nearly every single icon in that program has been grayscaled and "simplified." Seeing them side by side now for the first time, I realize a lot of the new icons make sense. Maybe I just hate change.

No. For the most part, they are valid complaints.

1.) Start button. Hover is absolutely horrible from a HCI perspective, most significantly being the fact that the cursor is difficult to track with your eye (cf. Most et al, 2001, and Murata, 2004.) Hot corners/edges also cause more problems on multiple-monitor systems where it's not a hot corner so much as a hotspot. Microsoft briefly experimented with this sort of thing before abandoning it years ago - hotspot common control, hover-to-select on ActiveDesktop. Microsoft abandoned it because it was horrible.

2.) Desktop is an app, conceptually. Flat-out bull****. Run Windows 8 with multiple monitors and tell me, with a straight face, that Metro is "conceptually" the OS.

3.) Not restyling Explorer, because businesses want the same desktop look-and-feel as 7. More flat-out bull****. Businesses are not going to deploy Windows 8, period. It's not going to happen. Never ever. Microsoft isn't reskinning Explorer for two reasons: businesses DGAF, and they don't want to invest in something that they are trying to EOL on the consumer side. It's not a ****ing favor.

4.) They're called App Previews because they're supposed to suck. The apps exist to show app developers two things: what the OS can give you, and how much Microsoft is dogfooding. Complete failure on both accounts. For example, the mail app doesn't save any state, so if you're typing a long e-mail, switch away and Windows 8 suspends it, your e-mail is gone. That shows Microsoft is not interested in educating their own employees about the most basic technical requirements and best practices for Metro application development. They are selling a product and their salesmen have a bad attitude.

5.) Shutting down is not difficult. I do agree with him that it's not something you should need to do very often, but their choice of placement is surprising. It is now located in a part of the operating system which was previously reserved for configuring internal, persistent state. It's counter-intuitive and shows that Microsoft does not understand their users' mental model of interacting with their computer.

Nope. It's too late for any substantial changes.