jmjsquared - I'm just trying it without any special hacks to get used to how its supposed to feel naitively. However, this is only a secondary machine, I'm still running Win 7 on my primary PC and I spend a lot of time on my Macbook Pro. So 8 isn't my primary system
Now that I've spent some more time with Win 8. I think I can get by without the traditional start menu. I've found that the times I go to the start menu are:
* To right click on My Computer and then choose something from that menu.
* To find some program I've installed but rarely use (so its not in the short list that is already there).
* To get to the LAN.
* To open the control panel.
So in Windows 8, I've made Computer, Network, and Control Panel appear on the desktop. I've put a quick launch icon in the task bar for Computer Management (I use that somewhat frequently with multiple drives and partitions). And then, I've put in my commonly used programs in the task bar too.
I've also noticed anything I installed appears on the Metro interface page so if I need to launch something that isn't in my task bar I can see it in Metro and launch from there. I imagine as this install ages having pages of Metro to go through to find my app will kind of suck, but so does hunting through a huge list out of the Start menu. But just like in Win 7 you can search for the apps. So I've been going over to the top right or bottom right of the screen to bring up the sidebar and clicking search, then typing. You can also just do Windows Key + F. So that seems to be working fine.
One thing I've been pretty dissapointed in is the Metro apps. I would have thought the Messenging one would be like Trillian and allow me to chat with people over a variety of networks: AIM, ICQ, Gchat, YIM, Facebook, ect. But it doesn't, I reluctantly connected it to my facebook because I figured that way I could chat with facebook friends without opening facebook. But instead the interface just seems to be a very poor implementation (at least for the desktop) of how to view facebook. I also entered my gmail to use gchat, but that too didn't seem to do anything, infact, I think it opened the Mail app and that too is a horrible way to do email. I haven't figured out how to view the rest of the crap in my inbox, only new messages. Messaging didn't have any way to do AIM that I saw. So nothing good at all in Messaging or Mail.
Also, in the Finance app, it has some good information, but I haven't been able to figure out how to add my own stocks. Surely they didn't make an app where you are forced to see only the stocks they want you to see.
Weather on the other hand is pretty sweet. I'm a weather junkie and I like all the data you can get. Still not quite as good as say Wunderground and their ability to click on various weather stations in your area, but its close. The variety of maps is great, but the video for them is really lacking. Only a few frames and small size.
I also do not like that once you are in a Metro app, hitting esc doesn't get you out of it, but if you are in the Metro interface, say doing a search, esc will get you out of it and back to your traditional app you were last using.
I haven't done any real file transferring, just something from a USB stick, but I really like the new presentation. I'll play with some network transfers later and do some pausing and such. Finally Microsoft allows you to pause a transfer.
New task manager is nice, wish it was in advanced view by default, I'm sure there is a registry setting to change that, but for now I'll just live with clicking more details.
Oh and speed. Its fast. Makes this old P4 seem like a C2D in Win 7 (I don't have anything faster to compare to, lol). I haven't timed a startup, but I've started it up, and walked away for a sec only to look back and see its ready to go. Almost unbelievable. Although, having said that, launching the Metro apps is pretty slow, so that reminds me I'm on a slow system. Browsing the web with Opera 11.61 and flash only enabled when I click where a flash thing is seems really fast. Think its faster than on my C2D with the same Opera in Win 7.
Edit 2: I don't understand how this happened. But initially when I installed it, it would boot directly into Windows 8. Which killed my to be triple boot. I was expecting to need to repair the mbr with my Windows 7 disk and then go screw around again with EasyBCD because PC-BSD didn't make a bootloader that would let me choose Win 7 too (well I'm sure it does, but I'm really new to BSD). But after probably 2 or 3 restarts, I now get a menu asking me what I want to boot into, even includes PC-BSD. Its a Windows 8 menu too, not a dry text based one. So I'm happy that works now, but I have no idea why it is like that now and wasn't earlier.
Edit 3: Figured I'd give solitaire a shot. Its too much for this system. Why they need a demanding game of solitaire I don't know, but the sound glitches and the video is really laggy. Not a good playing experience.