Windows 8

[Zelig]

On the contrary, you can fit far more icons than the desktop without it looking like a mess, the desktop starts looking bad after you get a single row or column of icons.

You can pin desktop IE to the start screen.

Again, it doesn't boot to Metro, it boots with the start screen open. Presumably the first thing you do when you boot is launch a program, (rather than right clicking on the desktop and doing stuff there) - you can launch stuff just as effectively from the start screen as you can from the desktop.

 

[Zack]

Personally, I'm baffled why anyone would buy a new Windows 8 laptop that didn't have a touch screen. In that case, why not just upgrade your current computer? Or simply stick with Windows 7?

 

[Archbob]

On the contrary, you can fit far more icons than the desktop without it looking like a mess, the desktop starts looking bad after you get a single row or column of icons.

No, you actually can't, the blocks take up far more room. I have 3 or 4 rows of icons and most of my screen is still blank and my resolution is really low for a laptop.

Again, it doesn't boot to Metro, it boots with the start screen open. Presumably the first thing you do when you boot is launch a program, (rather than right clicking on the desktop and doing stuff there) - you can launch stuff just as effectively from the start screen as you can from the desktop.

Can you please stop pretending it doesn't boot into the new interface, because it does. Individual icons are harder to identify and find on the new interface than the old desktop as a few people have mentioned here because of the block format. Pretty much every user community, perhaps except MS's own forums(and still plenty of people hate it there), hates this new interface, power user or not.

I have a friend who develops stuff for Win 8 Mobile and loves the new Surface and Windows Phone. Even he hates the new UI for the desktop and stuck with 7.

I do launch a browser alot, I launch it from the new UI and I open up a site. Oh look, it doesn't work! Why? Because the new UI doesn't allow flash on most sites and tells me to switch to desktop for the site to actually work right.

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, they take up more room, but they look less messy doing it.

No, it doesn't boot to the new interface, the start screen doesn't behave at all like a Metro app.

You must hang out in mostly dumb communities, good tech ones (theverge, arstechnica, anandtech, hardocp, etc.) are all fine with it.

Windows Mobile 8 isn't a thing.

Pin the desktop IE to the start screen. Or any other browser.

 

[dutchfire]

I haven't used this Windows 8 yet, but I don't really understand what all of you are talking about. I have Windows 7. If I start it, I will get a desktop, which is a screen where clicking on some parts of it will start up some programs. Now, in Windows 8 there is this "Metro", which also seems to be a screen where clicking on some parts of it will start up some programs. What's the difference?

 

[Zack]

What's the difference?

BIG COLORFUL BLOCKS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH

 

[Mise]

Yeah, 99.999% "raaaaah change".

People said the same thing about the Ribbon in Office 2007, myself included (I'm a heavy Excel user at work, and having to relearn stuff annoyed me), but actually, it turns out that with a little bit of getting used to, it's a massive improvement over the toolbar/menu paradigm.

It's simply an X-Y problem: You want to see the "desktop" because you want to launch programmes from it. In your mind, that's the only way of launching programmes. In fact, the goal isn't to see the desktop, but to launch programmes -- which you can do just fine from the new Start interface.

"How do I do A? I can't do A the way I used to do A."
"You do it like <this>. It's called B now."
"Oh, so I just do B instead of A?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, okay."

Simple...

 

[Archbob]

Yeah, 99.999% "raaaaah change".



It's simply an X-Y problem: You want to see the "desktop" because you want to launch programmes from it. In your mind, that's the only way of launching programmes. In fact, the goal isn't to see the desktop, but to launch programmes -- which you can do just fine from the new Start interface.

Except its harder to find the icons in metro, I can't fit nearly as many on the screen, and the blocks are far more messy in most people's opinion and simple desktop icons(Zelig doesn't believe this point). I also have to distinguish that I want to use the desktop version of a browser , despite the fact its a desktop machine and it should be the default. The default start menu looks like the picture I posted, where the time, weather, web pages you go to, and program are all jumbled up in a blocky mess.

 

[Zelig]

The default desktop comes with all kinds of OEM crapware which is far more work to get rid of than a few icons on the start screen.

 

[Iranon]

From my experience, Windows 8 boots slower than Windows 7. "Shutdown" is a hibernate-light by default though.

Desktop icons always seemed clumsy to use. Most/all of my desktop real estate will be used for something useful. Even if space remains, chance are the items I want are covered. This is twice as true on an interface without virtual desktops.
Yes you don't really lose much from having desktop icons, but the same is true for various silly widgets or a permanent terminal or whatever else you may want to stick there.

On the whole, the start screen is a better implementation of the functionality, to the point that having desktop icons in addition feels superfluous. I suppose a little design coherence can be sacrificed to avoid antagonising users used to desktop icons (i.e. most of them).
Methods of changing items around are awful though.

 

[dutchfire]

Except its harder to find the icons in metro

Are they always at the same place, or does it move them automatically based on what you used most? I guess the second could be annoying if the algorithm sucks.
Can you determine yourself which apps get a tile? (And the tile size, and color/icon?)

I can't fit nearly as many on the screen

The screenshots I've seen suggest the number of 'small tiles' is in the lower 20s. That seems like enough for me.

 

[Archbob]

The screenshots I've seen suggest the number of 'small tiles' is in the lower 20s. That seems like enough for me.

You can fit 20 or so, but that takes up your entire screen. Whereas I can easily fit 30-40 icons just taking up like 1/3 of my screen.

 

[Zelig]

You can fit 20 or so, but that takes up your entire screen. Whereas I can easily fit 30-40 icons just taking up like 1/3 of my screen.

That sounds neat and easy to use.

 

[Archbob]

That sounds neat and easy to use.

It is, its in ABC order so I never have trouble finding anything and it only takes up 1/3 of my screen, unlike this jumbled blocky mess. You try fitting 30 of these "blocks" on 1366x768 resolutions(default for my laptop).

 

[Zelig]

Good thing you can use the Windows 8 desktop exactly the same as the Windows 7 desktop then.

 

[Archbob]

Good thing you can use the Windows 8 desktop exactly the same as the Windows 7 desktop then.

Except I can't fit all my icons nearly as neatly because the blocks are cluttered and take up way more space than my icons. Try fitting 30 icons on 1/3 of the screen at that resolution.

 

[Zelig]

You can use the desktop exactly the same as Windows 7.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

You can use the desktop exactly the same as Windows 7.

Gee, so I wonder why then Windows 8 doesn't boot the the desktop by default.

After all, the desktop seems to be the solution to all the Windows 8 woes.

 

[Mise]

Desktop icons are disgusting. If you care about the 30 icons on your desktop then you are using your computer sub-optimally. I haven't double clicked a desktop icon in literally years.

 

[Archbob]

Desktop icons are disgusting. If you care about the 30 icons on your desktop then you are using your computer sub-optimally. I haven't double clicked a desktop icon in literally years.

If you have several programs you often use, there is nothing faster than just double clicking an icon. How is that sub-optimal use? Double click an icon is faster than search or type in a program name.

I know computer geeks like to launch things from the taskbar or type a program name, but its not any more efficient than double clicking a desktop icon. Your "sub-optimal" argument is total BS.

Not being able to stuff that many icons without taking up an entire screen by itself makes the new UI suck. Most desktop users who defend the new Win 8 UI even concede that they spend 95% of the time in desktop which means that no one actually really uses the new UI to any extent. If it really was any better, they wouldn't be spending the vast majority of their time in the old desktop view. There's no reason it doesn't default to desktop mode for desktops and laptops.

You can use the desktop exactly the same as Windows 7.

There no reason why is doesn't boot into this as default and have the new UI as an option instead of the other way around when most people are going to just use this anyways. It actually pretty stupid not to unless there's a more insidious purpose -- like trying to shove a UI that will make us more dependent on their APP store.