Windows 8 is mainly designed keeping tablets, and smartphones in mind. It looks good on desktops too and in many benchmarks tests it scored better than Windows 7, I would have liked to see a large metro styled taskbar at bottom or top with auto-hide option. The only glitch It has for me is that switching between metro and regular gui is not so smooth. 

For users who don't have touchscreen monitors, it does feel awkward at first. But once accustomed to it, they won't have any complains I guess.   Play games, be happy and stop saying, it was no start menu that prevented you from breaking the high-score. Forget the start menu, now you have a whole big start screen.

I have seen many people(including one a*sh*le) who feel proud of having the fully occupied cluttered desktop with lots of ppts, words, pdf etc because they find no other place to store them. Things will be more pathetic for them being devoid of their favorite location.

Rumor has it Windows 9 will be out this year.

I have the beta test for Windows 10 already running on my laptop. In my opinion, Windows 8 is worth it if you like the style. But if not, Windows 7 works just as well. I think that it comes down to how people want their screen to look. Even if Windows 8 did perform better in benchmarks, Windows 7 is still pretty good.

-Lord Brony

moshi, I gave you a link to majorgeeks where I got a couple of items... I'd imagine others are there if you look for them.

Windows 10? You skipped a number.

I'd like to know where you got this from.  Last I recall, from an MS blog, I believe, Win 9 was only in early development and wouldn't be ready until late 2014 early 2015.

Yeah, really!   Definitive screenshot, please!  Put it this way, if you post a screenshot proving beyond doubt it is Windows 10, and a bone fide link to where you obtained it, I'll send you a naked photo of Dolly Parton that I took in 1952.

I've been saying a while now that Windows 8 won't really take off until good WinRT apps do.

I'm still waiting for Skulls of the Shogun to show up.  And MS published games, though I'm sure that'll take a lot longer.

Google Earth is the same legacy app that exists since years. it's likely you run that.

the link you gave for "Google Mail" is an old legacy app, that is not even a mail client! it is a third party hack that allows you to use the storage space of Google Mail as cloud service. you probably found that just before you posted and forgot to read the description.

you imagine "others are there if you look for them". but in reality they do not exist. not at majorgeeks or anywhere else. and no, a third-party app that uses a Google api is not a Google app.

just admit that

is not the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmaster_Protected_Mobility_Vehicle 

May as well get one that works....;)

In my defense, Microsoft went backwards by 1993 digits. I'm allowed to skip 1 digit. 

-Lord Brony

Actually, you are right, I have no Google apps on my Win 8 installation... not anymore.  I recently performed a reformat to get a cleaner, fresher installation after trying out various programs and settling on exactly what I want/need.  However, and I don't know about you, but I keep my old program installers to save constant re-downloading, and the Google Earth, Mail and Maps copies I had were working.  As it is, though, I need none of them because I no longer sync my Android devices and the default apps in Win 8 serve my mail and map needs well enough.  Orright?

so you can't take a screenshot unfortunately.

let me guess: you do not keep these installers anymore, except the one for Google Earth?

syncing? so you were using these imaginary apps for imaginary tasks? makes perfect sense.

Without the need to  make a profit. Big difference.

What's more then technically true they were just bulldozered by MS into win8. They made them a deal you can't refuse. And that's how it'll be for all other enterprises/agencies who run on windows platforms. You can pick any OS you want as long as it's windows 8.

Your argument for it being picked for it's qualities is empty. Anyway most corps will put their own shell on it so they are basically running windows 7.1 which is hardly any improvement over w7. They very few important things that have improved are of no consequence for corps.

So we're back to the good old market control mechanism to push substandard mess onto an undserving public. At least i'll have fun in a year or two when you lot try to install an application which isn't from or approved by the MS store.

Moshi, are you deliberately trying to start a fight or something?

No matter, we're done.

There are already corps running Windows 8, whether they're in the news or not.  It's not like they're all going to avoid it as long as possible.

Your argument is just as empty as mine I'd say.

As to your last point, it's easy to sideload WinRT apps.  Not as easy as getting them from the Store of course, but there you go.

windows 8 is made for tablets and touch screens . if your running a desk top computer your going to hate it. I'M stuck with it for now on my desk top  thank god for start8 or I would of drop kicked this machine. im still using the evail.copy of windows 8 that I got from Microsoft .  Microsoft has so much invested into winshit8 that they can't and won't omit to making another blunder ~

1reno, i have it on my desktop and i don't hate it. i admit i had to install start8 right off the bat because i didn't think i could use the 'metro' interface but i find myself more in metro now than the standard desktop. i am enjoying win8 so much i bought a windows phone and sold my iphone. i'm also debating which win8 tablet to buy.  so, you're declaration that a person will hate win8 on a desktop isn't valid. sorry, dude

.

Right off the bat, you are dependant upon a 3rd party program and even the very best software company will let you down someday. Fail number one, it should work the way I want it to out of the box.

You are enjoying a $40 OS so much, you have spent and will continue to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to have this same experience across multiple platforms. Fail number two, I have a phone, I use it as such. Allow me to use my computer as a computer.I don't see a need for those other devices. Don't force me into an environment based upon assuming I will.

Taking the Personal out of Personal Computer and replacing it with some corporate vision of what we want.....well, we all know where that is going, right?

The opinions expressed are soley my own. Carry on.

nah, was just figuring out wether you were lying or just confused.

may i ask what you actually do in Metro? i mean the gallery app is nice and so is Skype, but i really didn't see anything else that looked convincing.

"Metro" or "Modern UI" whatever you wan't to call it is the exact same thing as if you "pinned" an item to your Windows 7 start menu. You are free to unpin and pin as you wish. If you want "All Programs" you just right click on the metro screen and you have that option. 

It isn't rocket science at all and navigating it is faster than the traditional start menu.

I too have Start8 installed but never use it.

So tell us moshi, how much hands on use have you had with Windows 8?

Based on that comment I suspect that you and kona have about the same practical hands on, quality time spent on it and are basing (rather strongly) your opinions on further meaningless opinions of someone elses opinion of what their grandmother's 2nd cousin read in an issue of Gardening with Animals in the bath room of the local convenience store in the middle of BFE at the butt-crack of dawn.

lol, probably my bad English. what i wanted to ask is with what MadDeez, who said he is spending more time in Metro than on the standard desktop, is spending his time.

i had the the rtm in a virtual machine for a week. wasn't really impressed.

I rest my case.

Yet nearly everyone I talk to that has a new computer with Windows 8 has a different opinion. They really dislike Metro and Windows 8.

@Wizard

Here's a scenario for you.  A person on a plane working on a spreadsheet with their win8 tablet, as they later walk off of the plane and their tablet hits WiFi it silently syncs that spreadsheet to their SkyDrive (but to a section in their skydrive that other people have access to).  As they wait for a ride they text one of those 'other' people to have a look/make changes to said spreadsheet.  While they are being driven back to the office they receive a text that there have been some updates made to the spreadsheet.  They view those updates on their windows phone (running MS Office) and are about to make some additional changes when the car arrives  back at the office.  They walk through the door into their office place their phone onto the desk and sit down at a Win8 desktop.  Through the magic of Win8's superior SkyDrive integration there are but a few clicks and they are back in the very same spreadsheet they were viewing/editing on the plane, viewing/editing in the car without any additional hassle at all.

Yes the above can be achieved using other tech already available, but MS has worked at making it all even simpler.  That they have achieved and I will be damned if I don't give them credit for doing so.

Sure the above may not be everyone's scenario........but come on.......you're simply discounting such an 'ease-of-use' scenario because you feel the following? "Fail number two, I have a phone, I use it as such. Allow me to use my computer as a computer.I don't see a need for those other devices."

@moshi

For some of us it isn't even necessarily what we are 'doing' in METRO it in fact would be more of what we're not doing in METRO.  For instance, using METRO there is no longer this insane drive to needlessly clutter the hell out of one's desktop.  Metro makes it substantially simpler to get in and out of apps as well as efficiently multi-task (man do I love the side-by-side screen swipe to switch between two frequently switched between apps) instead of hitting that antiquated start-button like there is no tomorrow.

At the end of the day, to each their own.  Just don't expect some of us to sit silently by while some of you choose not to accept that there are those who might not wait for innovation to kick them in the ass and would choose to change their computational ways, sometimes for something which is obviously better, but also sometimes just having a willingness to change and see where things can go.  That is after all how we ended up using the computational tools most of us are currently using anyway.......