3. Multi Monitor support was changed (Task bar now goes across all monitors).

You can change this behavior right from the taskbar settings. The default is to put it on each monitor, showing the same things on each, but you can also have it show the active windows only on the corresponding monitor, or switch to the old single taskbar mode.

Their new style is "Marketing by screaming".

I guess calling it PIPA wasn't enough to slip it past everybody. Maybe they'll have to call it KATE MIDDLETON or something.

This is why I use Access a lot. Compared to the awful ERP and operational software that's out there, the little things I throw together look perfectly fine. And if I can go from concept to deployed application in an afternoon, then that's less cost to the business. We had an old RMA tracking application written in VB6, that had the database server name hard-coded. I spent a couple of hours with Access, totally rewrote it, and actually made it better. I certainly wouldn't write an entire accounting system in Access (probably), but in a world of software written with necessary business constraints and compromises in mind, do as the Romans do.

Kinda the same here. We're running it on a few machines, and while the tablet-UI side of things is largely ignored, the rest of it works well enough. Yeah, there's some stuff that's missing (the GUI for modifying all stored wireless connections, for example), but I like the spatial nature of the new Start menu. It's kind of like being able to pin programs where you like them on your taskbar, but in two dimensions. Yes, I know you could do that with icons on the desktop, but you can't scroll the desktop, and you have to hide windows to get to it.

We don't have immediate plans to roll out Win 8 to everybody (as far as I know), but it sounds like there are some improvements to memory footprint. I'll have to test this in our ESX environment, because if we can reduce the memory usage of a hundred VMs vs. Windows XP or 7, then that might make it worth jumping over 7. If we take that route, I should be able to do a few hour-long lunch-and-learn sessions to get everybody up to speed. For most people, I'll just have to teach them about the Start menu. On the IT side, I'm sure we'd have to figure out what kind of new group policy settings would be needed, what with the app store and such.

I'm not entirely convinced that "being a belligerent, hate-mongering asshole" is fully a subset of "free speech".

Ask some vaguely technical questions. Yes, it's a bit of a trick question. If he starts coming up with elaborate and specific implementation details and other micromanagement, rather than a high-level understanding of the business constraints and risk assessment, who he would delegate to, and what requirements he would communicate, I'd be at least a little bit worried.

If I ask my manager what stance to take with sales data retention, he'll tell me the business policies and IT resource constraints that affect the decision. If I ask him how I should construct the database to keep the large historic data from impacting performance, he'll tell me that's what he hired me for.

Granted, they've only been able to create a Youtube commenter as of yet, but there's still a lot of untapped potential.

Yeah, any fresh platform starts out as a bit of a catch 22. Developers aren't going to target it if nobody is buying it, and nobody is going to buy it if there isn't any software for it. The other way to get people buying it is to have a compelling out-of-the-box experience that substantially differentiates it from the entrenched competition (in a good way), and MS has clearly missed the mark there, so the remaining option is to sink tons of money into it like they did with their XBox business. I don't know if it'll work, but I can tell you that Windows RT doesn't hold any significant appeal for me yet.

That's an outright safety concern, not just a mere perceived nuisance. Does the existence of manual transmission vehicles offend you?

"The Start menu layout is different" is in an entirely different class from "Muscle memory might cause me to stomp the wrong pedal and kill myself/somebody else." It's such a stupid comparison that I can only assume you're trolling.

Nowhere, unfortunately, but I do at least have some black hole zones configured on my home DNS server.

Ads will do that anyway, as they all have to compete with each other for your attention. By accelerating the process, we're just drawing attention to the awful tactics, rather than letting everybody slowly get accustomed to them over time.

Adblock already follows me from one device to the next.

Yup, I've found that, and while it doesn't have everything you could do from the old Start menu, it is pretty handy. It's definitely not very discoverable, though. I'm willing to bet it's a rogue feature, but it's a welcome one.

No, I'm not complaining about things being different from how they were before. I'm complaining about the capricious separation, hiding, elimination, and duplication of functionality. I think the whole finger-friendly Metro concept can work, and I actually like the new Start menu (it puts more in front of you, and can be customized more flexibly and spatially), but it all feels like it was designed by two completely separate teams and integrated at the last minute, with begrudging compromises and concessions to tie everything together. Honestly, knowing Microsoft's size and bureaucracy, that scenario wouldn't surprise me one bit. The combination turns it into an El Camino: it tries to be both a car and a truck, mixing the worst qualities of both, and not excelling at either.