Windows 8 discussion

6 Ways to Totally Avoid Metro and Use Only Desktop Mode in Windows 8

Self explanatory, so enjoy.

I've had a dual boot Windows 7, Windows 8CP both 64-bit for about 2 months now. Other than I can't set up Outlook as my email client, and Windows 8 navigation is a bit clumsy using a mouse over a touch screen, I find that all my programs work pretty well. I use Microsoft Security Essentials as my AV and malware protection, and I use a temp file cleaner from Oldtimer. I have to slam the mouse pointer over to the bottom right-hand corner of the desktop, to bring up the navigation bar, and the start page icon disappears in the left-hand corner when I try to click on it. Windows 8 installs faster and runs faster than Windows 7 on the same hardware. The video seems brighter and sharper too...
I did get the start screen to finally come up properly, and Archean's tip on avoiding the Metro works well

hm, that will only do a partition, not the whole disk right?

Very cool, I hope to have windows 8 some day if I can get it for next to nothing. W7 looks and performs fine for me really. I had to buy old ram once and my was it pricey! Should stay moderately priced.

Im not sure I like the new GUI... Probably going to get used to it tough .

Do you guys think this new GUI will bring the console gamer to the pc?

My thoughts on my limited trials with windows 8 is that it feels like it is made for a tablet and desktop users are getting the shaft. I love the features they added, such as improved multi-monitor support, the new task manager, better file management windows, but all of that is restricted by metro. Those things aren't useful unless you are in the normal explorer as opposed to metro. but everything is so centralized to metro that these new features almost seem irrelevant. Everytime I hear of a new or improved feature I get excited, but then remember I HAVE to use metro which made me decide I'm just going to wait until Window 9, skip Windows 8, and stick to my good old Windows 7

I really dont like the metro interface. I like a clean minimilist desktop. I think I'll end up getting windows 8 just to learn it, but I'm more than happy with windows 7 right now. I can see why metro would be nice for the tablets/touchscreens tho

Tried to install it on vmware some time ago, failed as it seems it was not supported at that time. Will try now on hyper-v and get back with my impression.

I have had a lot of good times with Windows 8, when my install of Windows 7 ultimate died I just got the Consumer Preview because...well I want to see what it was like and I finally had an excuse.

I can say I would definitely buy this when it comes out, but I am still worried about compatibility as well as game performance. A few games I have just did not work.

On the whole, I used the Metro interface quite a lot but I was mostly in standard desktop mode.

can't wait!

Heh, this will get nice and long
But anyways, the release of Windows 8 will be interesting. I am seeing a somewhat slow release, then it picking up as it becomes more popular. At the least this should be popular on tablets...

this is great for tablets. maybe only for that.

I wanted to try Windows 8 on my old Fujitsu P1510D, but unfortunately it wants a 1024x768 resolution as a minimum as well as multitouch.

I tried the previous preview in VirtualBox and didn't like the interface that much, but if it's possible to get the old desktop back with no hint of Metro, then I might give it another try. From what I've read there are enough tweaks underneath the hood to make it a worthwhile upgrade over 7.

And all that said, I'm just now planning to switch from Vista to Windows 7 on my main PC, so it's not like I'm going to rush and buy 8 right now. I won't mind winning it, but otherwise will probably wait to see what the next version has to offer. (I had a license to 7 since it came out, but Vista feels okay to me, and reinstalling is a hassle. However I bought an SSD which I think is a good excuse to install from scratch.)

EDIT: reposting this here to enter the contest

I don't think it'll be as bad as everyone says it will be. What I'm most interested in seeing is the integration between windows phone 8 and windows 8. I like the metro UI but I really don't see the purpose of it not defaulting to the desktop or having a start button. As far as tablets are concerned I think it will be a great OS. It's MS trying to combine tablets and desktops that worries me. Touch interfaces are going to become increasingly more common, which is where it will shine. However, many of the readers on techspot are not interested in that aspect of it. W8 should be able to determine if it is being run on a desktop or tablet and adjust itself accordingly.

I'm not sure how I feel about the lack of a start button. Having only watched demos of it and not actually using it I can't form an unbiased opinion of it. When in the metro UI I've heard people can just start typing and it will start searching for related programs. I'm constantly hitting the start button just to use the search feature. So, will that save me a step? I'm not really sure. I think that I will need about 10-15 hours of using the OS before I can really decide if it's a help or a burden.

Windows 8 wont be the vista 2 everyone is talking about. Vista was a resource hog that was unstable with countless driver problems. It wasn't until I did a complete upgrade where all my hardware was vista-era hardware that my problems went away. That's all well and good but I shouldn't have to drop $1200 on a new system just for it to work right. Seeing as how so much of the windows 8 kernel is based on windows 7's, I don't think we will have any of those compatibility errors. I'm impressed with MS adding ARM support to W8. Being able to run a full desktop environment on a tablet is quite impressive. As long as it manages resources better than android then it will be worth considering. I'm curious about none ARM software running on ARM hardware. Will there be an "app store" for ARM only software? What kind of support can we expect from the ARM side of things

Regarding Windows 8 RT, I'm waiting to know more about it. I think it was said that the desktop will be available there, but can't find the reference. I also want to know how the version of Office that comes with it will compare to the x86 versions.

One thing I don't like about the ARM version is that it won't be possible to run Visual Studio natively on it. I hope it's just a temporary measure until it's compiled for that platform. I really want to see the ARM version become equivalent to the x86 one.

I have replaced my win7 just to try the consumer preview when it came out.(I'm still using it since I'm too lazy to reinstall everything again - to many big programs that I use for web development)
The first thing that I noticed was the boot time, a pretty big improvement compared to win7. Also the wireless takes much less time to connect.
It also uses a bit less RAM but I can't compare it to win7 since I had tons installed when I formatted.
But when it comes to video drivers, I've had some problems. I have a GMA 4500m (a bit older laptop) and the drivers that intel supply do not work with win8 (they even restricted it in the ini file - I tried manually changing the ini file but it still didn't install correctly). After looking through some older drivers I found one that didn't restrict the installer on win8 and it finally worked, but it took many hours. It still has some minor hiccups (it reminds me of win7 beta), nothing important.

Next is the METRO interface... I don't like it. It's full-screen, hard to get used to and frankly I feel like microsoft is insulting us by saying that we are too stupid for more complicated things. Sure it looks great and for a tablet it's actually pretty good but when I use a mouse and keyboard I feel like playing a game, a very bad console port. I used to work with the start menu pretty often, but now I try to avoid it. Also searching while in full-screen is really annoying, like when I want to write something that I have on my desktop and can't use copy-paste or when I want to compare things.

I've made my own Start Menu button in the task bar by putting some shortcuts that I use into a folder and then making a new toolbar . Too bad that the search function is still in the metro interface.

So in the end? I like the improvements but I dislike metro. I'll keep using win8 for now but I don't think they can save the new interface from being completely redesigned in the next windows."Changes for the sake of changes" does not work in the IT&C world.

I tried Win 8 in a VB and I thought it was so amazingly great! I loved how unfunctional it was. Motions controls with a mouse are so horrible that I loved it. Restricting people to the Metro interface was such a pain I started to tear up from joy. Let's not forget how wonderfully frustrating Win 8 is going to be when you're running 500 programs since you can never shut down any of them. They just keep running in the background. This is all great news to me. I run Linux, so hopefully with Win 8 being such garbage it'll push more developers into the free arms of Linux.

I don't think they're changes for the sake of changes. It's not as is Metro was invented for Windows 8.

I do think that they should have made it an easy option, like the did with Vista.

I have a few thoughts about Win8.
I kinda like the new metro for tablets and maybe even dektops with touch screen, but for gamers no.
There should be a gaming mode or something that brings back the old desktop (with a few upgrades ofcourse since it's a new version of windows). I also like how they reduced the number of processes and a lot of more stuff they did very well.
I'm just not sure if Win8 will be that great if they don't add an option to remove the Metro.

I am almost entirely for Windows 8. I tried it out on both my laptop (HP Tablet PC circa 2008), and my desktop (with two monitors). I am really digging it for my laptop, it's quick and totally works well, it was a little clunky with my desktop, but that's because I tried using metro-only apps for a bit (and now I know that I won't do that again-- unless I snap them (which is a great feature, actually!)).
I'm perfectly fine with the Metro start screen, and do you know why? I do one thing with the start menu in 7: open it up so I can type a command/program to run. And that's exactly what I can do with the start screen in 8. Nothing for me has changed. I'll pin programs I use often to the start screen, and it'll be even more helpful. Plus, live tiles are cool, there is no getting around that.

So overall, I do very much like Windows 8.