Windows 8 Is a Desktop Disaster

By Scorbing
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mentor

argonite

Posted
Posted

"it became clearer than ever to me that Microsoft had never actually intended the Start screen and the Desktop to work together"

That's weird, because they work together fine for me.

Maybe he has a buggy version.

Grand Master

shockz

Posted
Posted

Been using 8 for almost a year now on a desktop, took a few months but I prefer it to 7 by any means now. Far more user intuitive and the app store shows real promise. Can't wait until the majority of my apps are metro based, desktop is starting to feel ancient.

Grand Master

Arceles

Posted
Posted

He is stating his opinion and I don't think he is wrong at all. The first time I tried windows 8, used a bit for a day and then got tired of it, uninstalled it and went back to 7. It was only later when Start8 came that reinstalling windows 8 could become a possibility (of course there are other alternatives and free, I'm just stating this one because it works wonders), tried it a gain with a start menu third party app... Windows 8 became what it should be no hassle, but I will say it again, whoever thought the start screen is a replacement for the start menu is wrong... is just plain wrong, at best is an alternative and very inefficient at it.

Options should be always available when they want to execute such dramatic changes... and I'm sparing the fact that they removed the transparencies and put an horrid plain color on all the windows, not to mention, the white that often get's me blind.

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

No disaster here, and I've been using Windows 8 on nothing but for the past year. People need to get over this whole "touch only" BS. Take your damn mouse and move the frakkin thing. That's what it was designed to do. It's not that hard. You also have a scroll wheel that does wonders with the OS.

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Windows 8 is excellent on desktops and laptops; much better than any previous version of Windows because the new experience is how computing should be. I've enjoyed using the new Windows 8 experience on my laptop daily, since February.

No disaster here, and I've been using Windows 8 on nothing but for the past year. People need to get over this whole "touch only" BS. Take your damn mouse and move the frakkin thing. It's not that hard to do.

It's ridiculous, and unfortunately, much of the media are wrongly trying to claim that the new Windows 8 experience is harder to use with a mouse and keyboard, :s influencing many readers who haven't tried Windows 8 to believe that rubbish. It doesn't make any sense.

Grand Master

farmeunit

Posted
Posted

Here's my opinion: That guy is a dumbass.

As a professional developer I find that Windows 8 is great and really easy to use.

I like how stating their opinions makes someone a "dumbass" around here.

I agree with Arceles, also.

Grand Master

Arceles

Posted
Posted

Windows 8 is excellent on desktops and laptops; much better than any previous version of Windows because the new experience is how computing should be. I've enjoyed using the new Windows 8 experience on my laptop daily, since February.

It's ridiculous, and unfortunately, much of the media are wrongly trying to claim that the new Windows 8 experience is harder to use with a mouse and keyboard, :s influencing many readers who haven't tried Windows 8 to believe that rubbish. It doesn't make any sense.

It is difficult to use with only the mouse and keyboard, because if you want to, you have to remember every single command that the Start Menu used to do with just a click. That's why windows 8 is only alright with a start menu replacement, otherwise becomes very tiresome to re-learn to use the Start Screen, just to do what the Start Menu already did but this time slower.

  • stevember, Vvo and RottGutt
  • Like 3
Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

It's ridiculous, and unfortunately, much of the media are wrongly trying to claim that the new Windows 8 experience is harder to use with a mouse and keyboard, :s influencing many readers who haven't tried Windows 8 to believe that rubbish. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm honestly not sure why this is even an issue. If people are *that* afraid of moving their mouse, why do they even have one to begin with? In Windows 8 apps, I am moving the cursor around just as much as I did in any Windows 7 app.

Anyway this argument has been done to death. Not sure why it needed Resurrected.

Grand Master

vcfan

Posted
Posted

most of these articles are written by people who bought into the ipad hype, or bought an android device, and now when this cool new thing is out, they dont want it to succeed because they feel the attention is not on them anymore or the product they're using.

i was at best buy last night,and there were dozens of people at the windows 8 computer section,and zero on the apple and android side. In the 15 minutes i was there, they sold 4 windows 8 laptops, 2 windows 8 tablets, and 2 windows 8 desktops,and the rest of the store was pretty much dead. There was an individual that came in that was asking about the surface,and when the employee informed him that its only available at the microsoft store, which is a little bit of a drive from this location, he cursed. He didn't even know too much about how to use the OS, so the employee was showing him around and the guy had a big smile on his face.

Proficient

a1ien

Posted
Posted

I agree 100% with this article. Now Start8 fixes most of the problem - although I'd still like to get Aero Glass back.

Dot Matrix does not understand that mice are best for small precise movements and lots of clicking. Swiping the mouse all over the screen is slow and stupid.

Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran Popular Post

Posted
  • Veteran
  • Popular Post
Posted

It does seem that there are a large percentage of people who like Windows 8, who are utterly unable to empathise with anyone else who has a different opinion to them on Windows 8, or accept that there are people who dislike it.

I totally get why people like Windows 8. It's a genuine attempt at a paradigm shift from Microsoft, it's fast, it's a great way to fuse the desktop and mobile devices into one cohesive platform. I totally get it. I get what Microsoft are trying to do. But I just can't warm to Windows 8 at all.

However I read the opening page of the article and I understood entirely where he's coming from. The things that bug him about Windows 8 are exactly the same things that bug me. I loved Windows 7... my absolute favourite version of Windows that Microsoft ever produced.

This is an opinion. A preference. It's neither right nor wrong. That's all there is to it... I'm not a n00b, I'm not an iSheep, I'm not an Android fanboy.. I use anything and everything... I have no bias to any platform.... I love change, I love new technology. I'm open to it all. But Windows 8 just doesn't work for me at all.

Rookie

Totalaero

Posted
Posted

I would normally agree. But I installed Windows 8 yesterday and now I see why Neowin users always own people who say Windows 8 is bad. Windows 8 is a great OS it's just self proclaimed "Tech" people who don't know how to move their mouse on the top right corner of the freaking screen always complaining about it.

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

Dot Matrix does not understand that mice are best for small precise movements and lots of clicking. Swiping the mouse all over the screen is slow and stupid.

Why the **** are you "swiping" the mouse? My cursor movements are unchanged from Windows 7. And why are you only doing "small" movements?

And to the OP: Yep, this is clearly a disaster. WTF was I thinking? Obviously there's no work getting done here. Not with this mess. Nope.

post-420821-0-42182200-1351440136.png

^ (BTW, You're not going to get this level of functionality with Windows 7, no matter how hard you try.)

  • TPreston and ahhell
  • Like 2
Grand Master

Arceles

Posted
Posted

Why the **** are you "swiping" the mouse?

You have to go to the end of the screen to bring up the charms bar, or you must know the command to show it, same if you want to use the Start Screen, if you want to be "faster" then you need to use the keyboard, which implies to use the other hand or remove the hand from the mouse, then pressing the windows key button that, at the end, it's slower that just pressing the very nice Start Menu Orb..., not to mention, the delays that are needed for the charms bar to appear.

  • a1ien, Jose_49 and rpsgc
  • Like 3
Grand Master

ahhell

Posted
Posted

Scorbing starting yet another "I don't like Windows 8 and you shouldn't either" thread. Shocking.

:rolleyes:

I wonder how long before this nonsense gets locked too.

Mentor

grayscale

Posted
Posted

You have to go to the end of the screen to bring up the charms bar, or you must know the command to show it, same if you want to use the Start Screen, if you want to be "faster" then you need to use the keyboard, which implies to use the other hand or remove the hand from the mouse, then pressing the windows key button that, at the end, it's slower that just pressing the very nice Start Menu Orb..., not to mention, the delays that are needed for the charms bar to appear.

But the Start Orb is still there on the lower left corner. It's just that there is no orb.

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

You have to go to the end of the screen to bring up the charms bar, or you must know the command to show it, same if you want to use the Start Screen, if you want to be "faster" then you need to use the keyboard, which implies to use the other hand or remove the hand from the mouse, then pressing the windows key button that, at the end, it's slower that just pressing the very nice Start Menu Orb..., not to mention, the delays that are needed for the charms bar to appear.

Huh? Why are you going to Charms to open Start? Press the key on the keyboard or move your cursor to the bottom of the screen and click - just like you would in Windows 7.

And again, mice were designed to move around the screen. If you're that afraid of moving it, maybe a touch screen would work better for you? You could also increase your tracking to make the cursor move faster from edge to edge.

Grand Master

Scorbing

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I agree 100% with this article. Now Start8 fixes most of the problem - although I'd still like to get Aero Glass back.

Dot Matrix does not understand that mice are best for small precise movements and lots of clicking. Swiping the mouse all over the screen is slow and stupid.

(Y)

Grand Master

123456789A

Posted
Posted

No disaster here, and I've been using Windows 8 on nothing but for the past year. People need to get over this whole "touch only" BS. Take your damn mouse and move the frakkin thing. That's what it was designed to do. It's not that hard. You also have a scroll wheel that does wonders with the OS.

Yeah, I tried installing it on my McBook Pro that doesn't seem to have any kind of driver support in Windows 8. I was able to get around using just the keyboard because it didn't recognize the Apple touchpad. I'm probably going to replace the McBook with something else soon though.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • Secure Boot

      By cork1958 · Posted

      Simple answer is yes, you will still get the Windows updates and as long as browser is up to date, you will be good. Only thing secure boot does is protect you against boot level threats and make it harder to install other OS's. I've been looking into this pretty thoroughly lately myself as wifes computer has secure boot disabled plus my other, older computers that run Linux, don't have secure boot enabled. Have seen all kinds of questions about this on the Linux Mint and MX Linux forums. Just don't suddenly enable secure boot now.
    • Ford execs say they made a mistake when they replaced human engineers with AI

      By TsarNikky · Posted

      How many other companies will follow Ford's lead? Or, have they already gotten lazy and become enslaved to AI--and now can't figure out how to get out of that mess.
    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By TsarNikky · Posted

      Why would any self-respecting intelligent person follow any recommendation by Donald's GOP administration? With almost two years of fabrications, deceit, and blatantly illegal behavior, why believe them now? They had best be gone after the November 2026 election, so we'll wait and see.
    • AltSendme 0.4.1

      By Copernic · Posted

      AltSendme 0.4.1 by Razvan Serea AltSendme is a minimal, cross-platform application designed for fast, secure, and private peer-to-peer file transfers. It allows users to send files or entire directories directly between devices without relying on cloud servers, accounts, or any personal information. Everything is encrypted end-to-end using modern protocols like QUIC and TLS 1.3, ensuring both strong security and low-latency performance. Transfers are verified with BLAKE3 for data integrity, and interrupted downloads automatically resume, making the experience reliable even on unstable connections. You can transfer anything—images, videos, documents, and more. Integrity checks are performed on both ends, so your files are automatically verified for correctness during both sending and receiving. AltSendme works seamlessly across local networks or long-distance links, capable of saturating multi-gigabit connections for extremely fast delivery. With built-in NAT traversal and encrypted relay fallback, it connects devices almost anywhere. The app integrates with the Sendme CLI and will soon support mobile and web platforms. Fully free and open-source, AltSendme offers a lightweight, privacy-first alternative to traditional cloud-based services, removing size limits, upload costs, and unnecessary data exposure. AltSendme 0.4.1 changelog: Release Highlights Self-hosted relays: Run your own iroh relay so transfers don't rely on public infrastructure. Includes a full deployment template in deploy/relay/ with Docker Compose for a VPS and configuration examples for production use. Fly.io support: One-click deploy template for Fly.io, including a quick-start config (fly.dev.toml) for testing without a custom domain, plus production setup with Let's Encrypt and your own hostname. Relay settings UI: New Settings → Network panel to choose how AltSendme connects: automatic public relays, custom self-hosted URLs (with optional auth token), or disabled. Test connections, verify latency, and see live relay status in the footer. Disable relays: Turn off relay servers entirely when you only need same-network transfers (e.g. LAN). Direct connections only. No relay hop required when devices can reach each other. Android graduates from beta: Android is now part of the regular release cycle alongside desktop. APKs ship with each version (universal, arm64, and armv7). Other improvements Private relay access control via shared auth token Relay fallback notifications when a custom relay is unreachable Broadcast mode toggle in sharing settings Android release build fixes (split-per-ABI APKs, universal APK preservation) UI polish: mobile safe-area insets, dropzone layout, transfer progress animation Bug fixes for minification-related serialization issues and system tray icon loading What's Changed feat(relay): add relay status functionality and settings UI (a120cdf) feat(relay): implement custom relay server configuration and verification (51276c7) feat(relay): add configuration for private relay access and enhance observability features (48fbabf) feat(relay): enhance relay URL validation, display connection status (d4fffa0) feat(relay): add RelayChangeGuard component and enhance relay-related translations (16ba514) feat(broadcast): add toggle setting for broadcast mode in sharing UI (ca6d977) fix(relay): correct QUIC discovery port, pin image, templatize fly.dev (52a2ba5) fix: More broken serialization due to minification (67491a9) fix(android): preserve true universal APK across per-ABI builds (e9f256f) fix(ui): conditional safe-area insets padding on mobile (1182f0e) refactor(transfer): CircularRing component animation fix (944572b) chore(android): drop x86 and x86_64 release APKs, keep universal+arm64+armv7 (34ada0b) Download: AltSendme 0.4.1 | ARM64 | ~9.0 MB (Open Source) Download: AltSendme for MacOS | Android Links: AltSendme Home Page | GitHub | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Why Delta Chat is the best decentralized messenger you have probably never tried

      By zikalify · Posted

      You are mostly right about the ephemeral nature of it. As I mention in the article, if you dont add a second device or take a backup of your account before uninstalling it, then yes you will lose access to your account. That said, in terms of actual user experience when you sync multiple devices your message history carries across and there's also a Saved Messages chat like there is on Telegram to send messages and attachments between your installs. But yh, what you point out are correct and its not trying to emulate Messenger or Telegram.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      225
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      149
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!