I read about all the Windows 8 hate, but I also read about the many cool new features. From everything I read, Windows 8 sounded better except the metro interface and that was mitigated if you used keyboard shortcuts. I decided to give it a try at the limited time upgrade price of $40.
My take on it is that I like Windows 8 over Windows 7. Would I like a start menu over metro tile UI? Well, yeah. However, the fact of the matter is that I rarely use metro. 99% of my time is spent in desktop mode. I only use it for searching apps, just as I did in Windows Vista/7. Hit Windows key and start typing and hit enter on my app. Metro, also, displays your most used apps, just like 7. So you can just click those if you want too. Any apps I don't have automatically start, I just pin to my taskbar, though, and then I can run them in desktop mode.
Here are my reasons why I like Windows 8:
*) Boot/shutdown time reduced. I don't really notice this, though. Windows 7 was fast too.
*) Much improved task manager. This thing is a beast. A bunch of performance measurements in one SIMPLE place. Seeing what is using cpu/network/disk/memory in one spot is nice.
*) Windows explorer has a bunch of advanced and simple to use toolbar options by default. (I use them rarely, but I appreciate they are there.)
*) Master volume is overlayed on the screen as you change it with keyboard buttons. Previously I had to use 3rd party drivers/software for this.
*) No more Aero UI. Just a plain interface. I don't need the extra pretty graphics and I assume this gets better performance even if only a sliver.
*) File copying is much better. You get a nice graph and the time estimate is actually accurate now. You can, also, pause it. This has made a world of difference for my external drive.
*) Win-X: Pops up a menu of many administration tasks. (ie. Control panel, disk management, command prompt, run, etc). You can, also, modify this list with a 3rd party program.
*) Notepad is MUCH faster now. I'm not sure what they did, but in 7 and below, notepad would take seconds to load/display a simple 25MB file. Now it is instant.
*) Storage Spaces. I'm not using it yet, but being able to put drives in a pool is nice and I foresee use in the future. Built-in unraid. Yes, please.
*) Microsoft Security Essentials built in. (Called Windows Defender.) Malware/antivirus for the masses. (Supposedly it isn't quite as good at 0 day exploits as some other antivirus software, but for my purposes it is fine and it doesn't take up much resources.)
*) Win-P Shortcut: Easily change monitors in use and/or extend desktop. I use this to activate/deactivate my tv.
Cons:
*) I disabled the login/lock screen foreground wallpaper. This required you to click once before you saw your login box. This was simple and works the way I want now.
*) Don't like how metro tries to handle windows updates. However, the old Windows update from Vista/7 is still there, so I usually access that through the control panel.
*) Metro. I've disabled most tiles. It's pretty much used to search only and isn't a hindrance to me.
Here's what I think: If the start menu was available in Windows 8, it would've been very well received as a better OS than 7. The lack of it for me is not a problem as I search my apps anyway, just as I did in Vista/7. For those that are used to clicking with the mouse and can't change, they can get Classic Shell or Start8. I haven't tried either and probably won't, though, because they aren't needed for me. I definitely do not regret my purchase.