1 So we'll be expecting a report on Win 8 real soon now.

2 If you're hankering for a start menu, my favorite so far is ViStart (http://lee-soft.com/vistart/).

3 The Start Menu was crippled in Vista anyway, when they removed the expanding capability and constrained it to a small, scrolling rectangle.  I assert that the new Start Screen is a net improvement over the Vista/7 menu.
You can reorder things, make them appear or hide by default, and so on, and the hit box is MUCH larger than on the old menu.  Plus, if you don't like it you can mostly ignore it by pinning shortcuts to the taskbar or desktop.

4 The touchscreen-oriented not-Start screen has proven to be much less useful to me than any previous iteration, in part because I upgraded, which meant that 90% of my existing applications had to be found again and pinned, and also that the not-Start screen was cluttered with everything that it managed to find in folders that had applications, including dozens of Readme files and uninstallers. It was a very poor upgrade experience, especially when combined with the number of incompatible apps and drivers that made the machine unstable. It took me a week to get back to more-or-less where I was, and it's still a pain to try to fit everything onto the not-Start screen without having to scroll horizontally using the mouse or touchpad. (why upgrade from Win7 at all? To test the OS before too many people started using it at the office)

I have the same "meh" response to the OSX Dock, which has gotten progressively gaudier and less useful over the years. Long ago I bought a license for Overflow and have never regretted it.

-j

5 Yeah, the shortcomings of Windows 8 for desktop use are why I haven't upgraded, but for a tiny notebook like this, it looks like it might be more palatable (even without a touch screen).

We'll soon see.  I still have my eye on that Toshiba Kirabook, but better to spend $300 now to test the waters (and worst case, reinstall with Linux) thnt to drop $2000 on a shiny toy I never use.  (Looking at you, iPad.)

6 "The shortcomings of Windows 8 for desktop use," as far as I can tell, consist almost entirely of "I don't like the fact that it's different."
See also Vista, XP, 95.  I don't know if anyone complained about Windows 3 looking different, but I bet it did.
FWIW I haven't tried doing an upgrade, only clean installs, and I admit I did have to re-pin a handful of shortcuts but after that I am in the desktop all day long and other than the theme changing, it's just not that different.

7

RickC: The loss of the Start Menu is a pretty big annoyance (a start menu replacement fixes that, fortunately), but otherwise I mostly agree, but there are a lot of new annoyances.

I'm probably rare in that every laptop I've owned had touch and stylus support; Windows 8 is better at touch than Windows 7, but it's still a pretty lousy touch platform.

8 RickC - the problem is, for a normal desktop (non-touch) with a good sized screen, the whole Metro/Modern interface is a distraction, an annoyance.  It serves no purpose.  I always want to be on the desktop doing desktop things; anything that takes me out of the desktop needs to die.  From 95 through to 7, Microsoft never broke the normal workflow they way they have with 8.

Once you've slapped the Start Screen down, it does seem relatively functional, albeit a cheap downmarket clone of Windows 7.  But then, why bother with Windows 8 at all?


Now, if you have a touch-enabled device, everything changes.  Windows 7 is not touch-friendly.  Half of Windows 8 is.  Which is better...  Maybe?

9

Windows 8 does have Hyper-V (if your hardware has EPT)  and also makes a dandy network Hyper-V administration system--a lot cheaper than a Windows Server 2012 license.

Touch is improved outside of the Metro box but Windows 8 is still not a good touch UI. I don't believe anyone has yet built a UI good for keyboard, mouse, pen, and touch all at the same time; Microsoft's schizophrenic solution isn't a good solution.

10 Wow that was strange. I just wrote an extremely long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn't show up. Grrrr... well I'm not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say great blog!