win8 Rate the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

[Lexcyn]

2/10. Fail. I hate Metro.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

After having used it for some time now I give it a 4. This is going to be a nightmare to support on desktops and laptops. The Metro side works fine for tablets, yes. But... I don't know, the way everything is strewn all over the place makes no sense. I'm going to test it some more and post more in-depth opinions later.

[abysal]

Nerd rage? How about you get over it, people have a right to their own opinion. It has nothing to do with being afraid of change, for me Metro simply sucks as a desktop UI. It's a huge step backwards in usability and brings nothing worth upgrading from Windows 7.

Exactly. Unless they provide an option to disable it for when not using a tablet. The Metro UI works wonderfully on a tablet.

Tell us, what exactly did you use the Start Menu for that does not exist in the Start Screen?

Picking an app from a list? Check, that's in the Start Screen.

Pinned Apps on the start menu? Check, that's in the Start Screen.

Quick access to any setting, app, document by typing the first few letters? Check, that's in the Start Screen.

For those saying they can't live without the Start Menu, stop being so melodramatic. Windows 8 is just different, nobody is pretending otherwise. It'll take some getting used to, but NO functionality has been lost.

I think the issue is people whom like the Metro UI are expecting everyone else to conform to their views and assessments of what an efficient UI should be, I think that's very arrogant and close minded of them, not everyone needs to "get used to it". I think for the majority of the true power users out there, the current status quo UI works well and efficiently. There are some improvements to be made, but unfortunately for myself and others, the new Metro UI start screen is not one of them.

However for the tablet user, including myself, the Metro UI is nice. I'm still not a fan of the bright colors, makes me think the computer is a kids toy, but that's preference.

you think that instead of moving my house just a few centimers and a couple of clicks isn't as efficient as dragging my damn cursor across the screen slowly to get to a pinned app is more efficient? there is NOTHING efficient about the start screen as a desktop user no matter how hard you try spin it. you don't work enterprise IT do you? you don't actually realize how stupid people are with computers do you? there's nothing efficient about this design. at all. people are talking ish at apple for slowly turning OSX into iOS, but now we have microsoft literally throwing a tablet UI at you and telling you to deal with it as a desktop user.

i never said start screen doesn't do everything the start menu does. it does, just in a really really dumb way.

well I work at a corporation with about 80000 users and everyone of the guys running this place things its stupid. what leverage are you talking about exactly? What will this thing do OS wise that ipad's and android tablets aren't already doing? when it comes to tablets, ipads are owning the enterprise market. i can see microsoft's strategy of having one OS for both types of devices. better app support, same os, etc etc. but the medium they are dishing out so far is terrible. start screen is good for tablets only, that's it.

i don't get how you people who aren't using a touch device thing the start screen is good. what are you guys on? acid? the colours and big boxes are really pretty to you guys and you like playing with it?

I hate to say it, but simple users want simple interfaces. Simple as that. I at least want an option for the days when I feel simple and want to click on contrasting bright colored picture squares to launch my apps, that is when I'm not going blind from the liberachi color scheme.

[rajputwarrior]

Sounds like you are contradicting yourself here. If ipad are owning the enterprise market with their limited functionality how much better would a Windows 8 tablet be? How about Office, legacy applications, website creation, database management, etc. What exactly makes an ipad a better solution when a W8 x86 tablet can be managed just like any other pc while providing the same fast, intuitive UI of the ipad along with compatibility with an enterprise's current applications? Any IT department that rejects Windows 8 solely on its UI alone without evaluating its obvious advantages sounds quite unprofessional and frankly unqualified for the job.

office for ipad is coming... and who in their right mind is going to create a website, manage servers and databases on a tablet? vmware view and RDP apps already exist for ipads/android tablets and they are not fun to use. they are good for checking on things, not working. clearly you have never worked in an enterprise environment involving tablets. when did i say that ipad's are better then an windows 8 tablet? now you are just putting words in my mouth (or quote...).

ANd what IT department is going to reject an OS based on a UI? (i.e. usability and learning curve for the people it supports). A LOT OF THEM. You know why? cause IT departments are busy enough as is. We don't need to teach thousands of people on how to use a new OS cause some dumbass at microsoft though it would be a good idea to shove a tablet UI down your throat and tell you to get used to it. At least apple is doing it gradually with their desktop OS and not getting rid of things that still make their desktop OS and actual desktop OS.

this is what you people need to understand. No one does actual work on tablets, people check up on things like email and meeting on tablets, browse the web or use it to showcase pictures/slides for presentations. that's it. they are just bigger phones essentially when it comes to the enterprise environment. enterprises are moving towards virtualization. having one desktop that can be used/logged into on any computer whereever you are in then world (vmware, vdi, sparc solutions, etc etc). having a phone/tablet that can be docked into a monitor is cool and probably will take off eventually (like what ubuntu is doing with android) but it'll never work in the enterprise environment.

[silky]

I discarded all the neysayers comments about 8 firmly believing that MS would cater to the desktop crowd as they said the desktop would still be available. Hell I had even decided to buy 8 as opposed to a torrent. But I have been using this for 6 hours now and it is not intuative whatsoever, needs more clicks to to do simle tasks and it is generally a complete mess. metro for touch and not for desktop. sorry this is coming off my pc and 7's going back on and this is from a user that adopts every beta release throught to rtm, I even loved Vista, mind you I had a pc that was capable of running it speedily. This a massive fail as I believe MS has said they will not change the UI and want to force users to use it, sorry you won't be forcing me. 7 is good to 2020 maybe they will see the error of their way and provide a decent desktop again by then as the 8 desktop is crap. In fact they worship $$$ and $$$ won't be rolling in from 8 like it did from 7, so they will change again for 9.

[PGHammer]

There IS such a thing as taking comfort too far - look at what happened with the long wait just from XP to Vista, let alone those that bypassed Vista and waited for 7.

Despite having some of the longest history with the Start menu (and even the post-XP version, as I upgraded from XP to Vista in RC format, and from Vista to 7, also in RC form), I find that I don't miss the Start menu in the least.

Windows 7 has been fired - period.

I upgraded both the partitions of my Dueling Windows setup to the Consumer Preview, and held onto the DVD I burned from the x64 ISO.

And to all the critics that are thinking that I'm running this on a tablet or slate - I have to disappoint you. I'm running the Consumer Preview on a traditional desktop; specifically a personally built desktop with a Q6600 CPU, 4 GB of RAM, AMD HD5450 GPU, and Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer.

Not a single complaint with the OS itself, the included applications and apps, or the backward-compatibility.

The lack of issues - hardware OR software - and the improvements over the Developer Preview (especially the improvements in MetroSnap, the addition of QuickTask, and other changes, both large and small) are why Windows 7 was shown the door.

[Defcon]

Total and utter garbage to put it mildly. I appreciate the bold decisions and new direction, and all the improvements to make it faster and stabler, but there is absolutely no consistency, thought put into serving the needs of all kinds of users, or making things easier. The goals were - make tablets the target device, hack everything else to make it work with a kb+mouse, screw traditional apps and force Metro down our throats.

I am absolutely sure MS did no usability tests with normal pc's running Win 8 (like they do for every other OS, Office etc) because people would've revolted.

[MFH]

Despite having some of the longest history with the Start menu (and even the post-XP version, as I upgraded from XP to Vista in RC format, and from Vista to 7, also in RC form), I find that I don't miss the Start menu in the least..

Now news here, you've been saying that for weeks now?

Metro on the desktop gets a 1 from me. I imagine it's perfectly suited for tablets though?

[exotoxic]

If it stays in this form I wont be buying Microsoft in the future.

Definitely this

[hmm99]

if you thought Vista was a failure, windows 8 will be something else. I can't stand macs and never liked them, but after playing with the win 8 consumer preview, I will run to get a mac or just hackingtosh my laptop. I really can't believe they gave this POS the green light.

[HellboundIRL]

I'm willing to give any OS a go but I'm finding it very hard to get used to 8, it feels like I have to jump through hoops to do the simplest of things (eg. shutdown). I'm willing to give it a few more weeks to see if its just me not understanding its layout, I'm finding it fairly awkward to use at the moment.

I don't like full screen apps, I don't think its suited to a desktop but maybe they can be resized....I dunno yet.

[NiteJammin]

Personally i think it is a toss up. Some things are faster for some people, other things (people like me) it is a lot slower in some cases. The search still returns results fairly fast but other times it fails to launch simple programs like cmd, regedit or mstsc even though i use them about 90% of the time.

Metro is slow for me, i worked on pinning icons to it and removing all the standard startup junk, i installed some programs and moved them in to place which is not bad. I still rely on the task bar pins more than anything else. Starting up in to the start menu and only being able to select desktop to get my desktop i think is stupid on epic levels, and then right clicking on things in the start menu and having the menu for those come up at the bottom left of the screen where i started out at is not user friendly in the slightest to a desktop.

Where is the sleep button while logged in? Cause if I undock my laptop to go home, i go to start and sleep, with windows 8, i have not found the sleep button yet, or shutdown or restart really. Logging off, locking or switching user from the start menu is a pain now, granted i lock with win + L but its just in an awkward placement, I dont like those changes much.

The whole Metro IE and Metro apps that are defaulted to the start menu is stupid, the design is just wrong for Metro IE, here lets take 30 years of web browsing setup with the bar at the top and put it on the bottom becuase we can!

Getting to the control panel is fastest with a search, adding admin tools to the start menu adds a ton of useless stuff that most people on a desktop would never use on a desktop. It reminds me of Vista in the idea that they wanted to change everything because they could, not because its better. It takes twice as much work to do one task in 8 than it did in 3.1, stepping back has never been good.

[JustGeorge]

IMO, Metro is a huge waste of space on a Desktop PC. How this new interface would benefit a business is also beyond me. I have no need for my PC to look/act like a mobile phone. Windows 8 will be great on touch devices and for HTPC's w/Kinect but I doubt I'll upgrade from 7 on my PC.

[Azies]

Ran it native on my laptop, ran perfectly fine, but the word Beta kicked in, and some of my apps I use a lot don't work, so I'll just stick to running it in VM, but the process kind of helped me learn my systems boot from USB process, so it's not a total loss.

[Defcon]

It's like they took every lesson in making a UI intuitive and a pleasure to use and did the exact opposite. The installer should detect if you have a touch device, and if not show about 10 million warnings before letting you install Win 8. Metro apps should be instant, yet they still take a long time to launch, and some are basically unusable without touch.

I love how everyone keeps saying Win 8 will 'improve and get better for desktop users'. Let's face it, Sinofsky is going to stick to his guns and not change the UI, they think having touch, an 'app store' and facebook integration is all it takes to compete with Apple. It truly is a 'touch 1st, damn the rest' OS.

[Tender Foot]

The Metro UI is terrible for desktops, if there is no way to use regular desktop like we have with win 7 after release without hack/patch file then I will not be buying win8.

[123456789A]

For tablet, 9/10. Should be 10/10 by final release.

For desktop, they have their work cut out for them. I wish I had an easy answer. Maybe they are just waiting for touch hardware to become mainstream for desktop PCs?

I like the Metro interface, but the transition between the old desktop is awkward.

[rhianntp]

This OS is a cluster ... man....what a eclectic mix of two fighting user interfaces...ridiculous that there appears to be no easy way to use the run command from the desktop....also bizzare that when you click the network icon on the taskbar you get some ugle HUGE panel with metro BS on it... how is that appropriate when in desktop mode? Metro is hideous ! in 2012 this is th ebest design they can come up with.. we go from gorgeous 3D enhanced UI of Windows 7 to this fisher price looking POS....unreal...why force metro upon people? why can't we have the normal start menu if we want from the desktop? if you love metro then use it,but don't force it upon the masses who have no interest in it....This is not about hating change.. I loved every new UI from win 3.0 to win 7 ... this is a disgrace...

[Robbie Ride]

I like Windows 8 CP, its fast, polished and some of the changes are a welcome edition, but the Metro Start Menu needs to have an option for it to be disabled or uninstalled, I don't think it should be available on a standard PC, it's fine on a touch based device and that the reason for it's creation but for use with a keyboard and mouse, no way bring back the Start Menu and give users the option to change between the two should they need to.

I was expecting some of the long standing apps to be updated, Media Centre and Player are looking their age. I'm hoping that Microsoft haven't forgotten about Media Centre as i'm hoping it'll be light weight with all the common issues with it to be fixed as many of the associated services have always caused issues.

I hate the Lock Screen, having the wallpaper, time and date is fine but why should I need to drag the wallpaper up to enter my password, it's pointless, again unless your device is touch based.

Hopefully there will be major changes in the next build, some of them are welcome in this build, others aren't but will Microsoft listen to the criticism and apply the changes needed and requested or will they do their own thing and force people to join their bandwagon.

So far Windows 8 was not my idea, because no one at Microsoft wants my input or anyone else's

[rhianntp]

Hi, I'm a desktop PC and Windows 8 is NOT my idea !

[jedimasterk]

Worst user interface I have ever seen for a desktop operating system. Not designed for power users, or those who use their computers to get their work done. I can see OSX and Linux gaining market share after this is released. Utter failure!. Linux users complained about Gnome Shell and Unity. Well this is 50 times worse!.

[Solid Knight]

Love it. Everything a power user could possibly ask for. Traditional power user interfaces are littered with crap but no more. It's all streamlined.

[COKid]

I think some people have far too many expectations for a frickin' beta program. Good grief! No one is making you use it. I personally think it's rather cool to try a new OS for FREE for the next 10+ months.

:D

[laserfloyd]

You know, my wife used the dev preview on our laptop for months before realizing it was essentially a pre-beta OS. Guess what? She had zero issues. She never once missed having the start button. Never once asked me where it was. If you use the start button that much then you have ask yourself how efficient that is. I use it for 2-3 things in XP but 95% of everything I need is, wait for it, on my desktop.

Start screen = new start button... more or less, that's how I see it but with much more functionality.

My only complaint is scrolling with the mouse from left to right. I want to click/grab to scroll dangit. All in all it's a pleasant experience for this power user. :)

[Arceles]

I really miss my start orb...