The Bad

                Most all of the bad can be surmised in a short paragraph. Windows 8 feels like it abandons traditional desktop users. The new Metro interface isn’t the most efficient design for a traditional desktop. It’s designed for touch, and swipe gestures, something standard desktops don’t do. Of course the response to this is to make it so the desktops can do that! But I think there are a couple fundamental problems in that approach. First, I’m lazy and like things to be easy. Reaching across my desk to my screen to launch apps isn’t going to work for me. I could pull the monitors closer, but then I lose a lot of desk space. Second, this will spur a whole market of “all-in-one” systems, similar to the iMacs. The major problem with that is cost of repair is a lot more than your standard desktop and monitor. I’ve also noticed that it seems like the failure rate is higher for these devices.

                Desktop users are forced into giving up a lot in order to accommodate the other devices. Desktop users aren’t even given the option to switch to the traditional desktop and start menu. The old start-menu from Windows 7 is simply gone.

                A lot of the items have moved around significantly. I had to Google "How to turn off my computer and how to open tabs in windows 8’s internet explorer."  If the computer guy is having to Google this stuff, I can only imagine what’s going to happen for everyone else.

                Some things seem to be moved to very odd places, instead of logical extensions as has happened in the past. For example, you go to “settings” to shut down your computer. (…………………… wth?) If you want to open a new tab, right click to open a drop down that will then allow you to open a new tab. Really? That’s not going to work as I always have more than 5 tabs open. You have to right click every time you want to switch between tabs! Are you kidding me?!

                The music app loaded from metro is unintuitive, obnoxious and not for me. It’s pretty, but it consumes the entire screen. I want to open a song or drag an mp3 into the play list and let it rock. Good luck with the metro music app.

                The “right click” in the Metro start page  opens at the bottom of the screen. Normally when you right click, you get a context menu that pops up right where you right clicked. Instead you must right click, then go down to the bottom, then probably back to where you were before in Metro. That’s a lot MORE work, not less work as you would expect with “newer, better” stuff.

                The Metro Interface doesn’t let you view applications sorted by folder view. It’s basically you get every app on your computer (which again requires a right click before you can view all apps), or nothing.

                It is nice that in metro you can simply type the name of the program you want and lunch it fairly quickly. There, I said something nice about metro! I can scratch that off my to-do list.

                Another review described Windows 8’s “Metro” and “Desktop” modes as schizophrenic. I think that’s a very apt description. For example if you have a webpage open in IE for Metro, then switch to desktop mode, and open IE, you will find you are starting fresh. Switch back to Metro, and the page is still there. It’s as if it’s two operating systems in one machine.

                Just to repeat once again, the touch interface for a desktop is somewhat silly in my opinion. I don’t want to reach for my computer screen over and over again. That just seems like more work, not less.

                Tablets and phones are great for some purposes, but multi-tasking is not one of those strengths. That’s where desktops excel and mobile computing falls short. Designing Windows 8’s interface so strongly around mobile computing I feel greatly inhibits the ability of multi-tasking. As a user who typically has 6+ apps all running at once, this is a big no-go for me.