i am in a familiar situation, actually. Systems engineer. To make things worse, our VM solution doesn't forward shortcuts.

If your VM env provides shortcuts: win x for the hidden start menu, or win c for the sidebar (which hopefully will disappear soon anyway as it's completely redundant).
If it doesn't: winbutton, type "sett", enter (or instead of sett, just type the name of the setting you want to change)

yes, this is different to the old approach, but after some adjustment time to this win + typing ANYTHING approach, you will find you spend less time navigating 3-6 windows to get to its guts.

I get where you are coming from, and i had the same issues initially. The side band thingies are really some good work of stupidity. As i mentioned before, i exclusively use metro for starting programs and search for settings windows or files.

I am completely with you on how the unified interface is a bad approach.

(not the AC from above)
I think the Metro is inefficient when compared to how one worked with the start menu. But on it's own, it brings a few things that i personally find faster to work with:

- bigger targets: As I said before, moving the mouse faster with lower precision is easier than having to aim exactly (especially when it comes to cascading sub menues). I would compare it to how OSX puts the things for the focused window on top of the screen vs. at the top of the window - you just slam the mouse upwards and only have to navigate in one dimension.
- winkey + typing: the windows 8 interface provides me with direct links to every imaginable subsetting in some 3rd window that i would have to click through otherwise. For the most things, you wouldn't even need to finish typing to get the link. Also, it somehow manages to present you with results even if you type a different word to get to the same function: If i type "wlan" or "wifi", i get presented with a link to the "wireless" window (granted, this subfeature needs improvement)

I often read the argument that the start screen breaks "immersion" - i see no difference compared to the old start menu. When i open the start menu, my mental focus is there anyway, regardless if it's small and in the corner (needs more concentration but can see the desktop) or if the screen gets blocked by it (cant see the desktop, but due to higher selection speed i am back earlier)

Disclaimer: i use metro exclusively as the start and search function. The App part and settings part are completely stupid and ignorable (but thankfully, they don't mess with my traditional aspects of working on the desktop)

I was not trying to put down anyone. Sorry for my tone. "stupid" people and "lower classes" were used inappropriately but i didn't know how to express myself (not a native speaker)

It's the new "in russia..." thing :)

I get your point. I just think putting up roadblocks for competition (in this particular context) is just another way to achieve the same thing: to keep things the way that they are. "established interests", "preserving hold" are words that (for me) sound exactly like something that is averse to change.

But maybe it's just me not being a native speaker ;)

maybe it's just personal preference, but i find big mouse movements that need low precision to work faster/better for me. I nearly never used the start menue below win 8 because aiming at those small lines of text and navigating the cascading submenues that tended to appear way more demanding in concentration then having big targets where i just need to "fart in their general direction"

blablabla. press windows and type, just as before works the same way, even better.

Sadly, a big part of the population is very change-averse, because routine/conditioning is easier than adapting to new situations. Maybe this is evolutionary, because short term it's more "energy efficient".

Just look at the whole start-button thing with windows 8. While nearly everyone STILL argues around this little change and how bad it is because the old Startmenu is just the way how things were done for 20 years (which really is the only real argument, as all others are straw men), it really is an improvement in several ways IF one takes the time to adapt to work with it. Yet, even intellectually competent people bash it because it's just CHANGE.

And as this change-averseness (?) is not restricted to the "lower classes" but runs through the whole population, the stupid people will groan at the effort they have to make (and due to mass, loudly) and the intelligent ones will make the decisions to keep things the way they are....

Not panicking per se, but having it loom is something that comes with age. I always was a "living the moment" guy, enjoying it to the fullest. Now i am pushing 40 and death comes to my thoughts every now and then (for the last year or so). I don't know if it's "just the mid life crisis" or if those thoughts will stay/intensify, but it really can inhibit life a small, but measurable bit.

Did your mom try other tablets, too? I can see someone liking ANY tablet if it's the first one ever (i liked my first ipad despite not liking apple stuff) just because tablets mean "easy digital for the masses", but compared to the other offerings?

I am in the minority of people who actually really enjoys working on win 8.1 ON THE DESKTOP. Weirdly enough, in the tablet world, i still prefer Android tablets, because they are lightweight and hassle free (for me, at least)...

"Microsoft needs to spend its resources building something cool (that isn't a phone) and a separate brand for it. "

IMHO they did exactly that with xbox.

But they still managed to mess it up in the long run.

I don't think that Hipster Joe and Facebook Sue can comprehend source code

They blocked Gangnam Style for some amount of time, which didn't even originate in Germany.

Also an EU player (Austria), and i started playing it on 0.5.x. There were serious problems as soon as you hit the 22 player mark - although i mostly saw problems in missile hit detection, not so much in warping around... But they changed around quite a bit in how the missiles and bullets are handled in the netcode, so it got better.

Below 22 players, it always was very playable for me. And yes, this is a game for LAN parties also, as they provide a dedicated server for it with the MOD. The community even created a complete installer for it using the crysis wars demo.

If you like big stompy robots, you should seriously consider looking at it again - the last three versions of the mod improved on a lot of things. (It's still a mod though, so some things are expected to be not as perfectly polished)

I would not disregard the last deus ex.
Sure, it's got a more linear structure to it, but it presents a very cool story and still offers the 3 ways to solve stuff - violence, sneaking and hacking.

Yeah, Hawken is good fun. The ambience is right, the mechs are fun to steer and the fighting can get pretty intense.

Only thing i despise is the weird mouse deceleration they use to mimic the mass of the mech - this is especially pronounced for a former Q3 twitch shooter guy like me....