Luke727's Journal: Windows 8

I tried the Developer Preview a couple months ago and now the Consumer Preview. My takeaway is that Metro is probably ok for a phone or tablet if you get all your apps from the store, but for the desktop it is FUCKING RETARDED. Vista was widely panned, but that was mostly due to the initial release running like a dog (SP1 makes it usable) and overbearing UAC prompts (also since fixed). Windows 7 was a slight evolution, essentially what Vista should have been in the first place. I liked XP a lot; I was hesitant with Windows 7, but after using it for a while it grew on me. To this day I'm still not crazy about moving everything in the direction of search (in terms of using the start menu), but I can see the utility in it and still have the ability to use the old method. I hate Metro (on the desktop) with a passion because it is forcing a new paradigm that is totally and completely inappropriate. Maybe it's ok for people who are not particularly computer literate and want to treat their desktops as glorified smart phones, but for "power users" it makes things quite difficult. I could live with it if I all I had to deal with was Metro on startup, but even in the "classic" desktop there is no start menu; you have to jump back out to the start screen to launch programs in the ridiculous tile interface (search is still available, thank God). The "workaround" for this is to pin your most used programs to the taskbar, but there is only so much space. I use a lot of applications and tools during the course of my working day and if I were forced to use Windows 8 in its current incarnation I would go batshit insane. Vista was not well received, but it wasn't really a bomb, either. Windows 8 is a radical change and Microsoft seems to be putting a lot of its eggs in this basket. They usually come out on top in the end, but this time I'm not so sure. I generally don't root for people to fail, but this paradigm shift is such a radical step in the wrong direction.