Windows 8 is the first OS that made me downgrade

[Navan]

If advance users don't like it, the regular users are going to be bugged by it, IMHO.

Back to 7, I used 8 for 30 minutes, will use it from time to time but I guess 7 will be my Primary OS.

[JaredFrost]

I have yet to see a reason why it will be a support nightmare. People learned to use the Windows 7 desktop, and people will learn to use the new Start. If you have sat down with the OS with an open mind like I have, and suspended belief, then you would realize there is a lot to like about the new Dashboard when compared with the legacy Start Menu, even on desktops. This is going to be Windows going forward. There is nothing saying that "Modern" can't be used on the desktop. Give it time to advance.

All that tells us is you've never actually done support, if you did you'd realize that people don't learn.

[PGHammer]

All that tells us is you've never actually done support, if you did you'd realize that people don't learn.

However, that's not an excuse to stick your own head in the sand (and yes - I *have* done support; in fact, i still do).

Learning in IT is a constant - hardware AND software; the day you stop learning (or wanting to learn) in IT is the day you should find a new profession.

"Keep up or get run over!" is not new (I learned that mantra back in the pre-PC days of mainframes and green-screen terminals); however, how many people in IT (especially software or support) bothered to remember why?

[ahhell]

Back to 7, I used 8 for 30 minutes

/facepalm

[@Leo]

You know Windows 8 is the best OS ever. It technologically a step towards the future and when you finally get rid of the crappy desktop it will be even faster and better I don't understand why Microsoft did go all the way and get read of the desktop that my biggest draw back. I think it goes to show that Microsoft innovates far past APPLE and GOOGLE who stuck giving you crappy old technology and force you to used it I would not pay two cents for Mountain Lion there no compelling reason to buy. And GOOGLE Makes crap that never works right and is outdated technology. I hope that Microsoft get to Window 9 fast I'm already bored with 8.

[giannisgx89]

To be honest i'm using w8 for more that a month and i can't see any difference between w8 and w7.

I mean modern ui does not bother me that much but it's not something someone will say, wow.

Anyway i'm waiting to see modern ui apps to decide better.

[+virtorio MVC]

I have yet to see a reason why it will be a support nightmare. People learned to use the Windows 7 desktop, and people will learn to use the new Start. If you have sat down with the OS with an open mind like I have, and suspended belief, then you would realize there is a lot to like about the new Dashboard when compared with the legacy Start Menu, even on desktops. This is going to be Windows going forward. There is nothing saying that "Modern" can't be used on the desktop. Give it time to advance.

I don't think you have a grasp on just how little the average person knows about computers. Some people struggle switching between two different programs, now Microsoft is asking people to switch between two different environments. The reason Windows 8 will be a support nightmare is a magnified version of why Windows 7 is also a support nightmare: there are a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

I don't think you have a grasp on just how little the average person knows about computers.

Average people, to my experience, don't moan about changes like this quite as much as the so called 'tech-savvy'. Yes there will be a learning curve, but the majority of them will just get on it, some of them will even like the changes.

[Som]

just image this, metro inspired malware... computer starts up and the start screen has been replaced by a malware duplicate, can't wait for that one :p

[xWhiplash]

just image this, metro inspired malware... computer starts up and the start screen has been replaced by a malware duplicate, can't wait for that one :p

Or trying to work on a computer for somebody and the start screen is just a mess. These are the types of people that have 10 internet explorer toolbars active at the same time. I always hated that when people want to know why there computer is slow and they have all of this crap on there.

[Dot Matrix]

Or trying to work on a computer for somebody and the start screen is just a mess. These are the types of people that have 10 internet explorer toolbars active at the same time. I always hated that when people want to know why there computer is slow and they have all of this crap on there.

Their Start Screen isn't your concern. Just like the desktop isn't your concern. All you need to do your job is know that you can type to search to fetch the tools you need.

I don't think you have a grasp on just how little the average person knows about computers. Some people struggle switching between two different programs, now Microsoft is asking people to switch between two different environments. The reason Windows 8 will be a support nightmare is a magnified version of why Windows 7 is also a support nightmare: there are a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing.

The average person knows more than you give them credit for. Especially, the people of mine and younger generations.

[BajiRav]

Not that it's completely illogical, but considering that two of the other 'charms' in the bar are hardly ever needed (Devices - which doesn't mean what you think it means, and Sharing.) Both could easily be relegated to another location and put at least a Power 'charm' there for setting standby, restart, shutdown, etc. To me, that would be more useful. Especially than the Devices charm. What is that for exactly? You click it and it says Desktop. Nothing can be sent from the desktop.

You can print from Devices. I agree it's not the best name but given that it can be used for say sync music from the music player etc(My guess, not sure), I think that's the easiest name. If it was Apple it would have had a catchy but completely unrelated name (see Bonjour or Airport or Mission Control etc.)

I don't think you have a grasp on just how little the average person knows about computers. Some people struggle switching between two different programs, now Microsoft is asking people to switch between two different environments. The reason Windows 8 will be a support nightmare is a magnified version of why Windows 7 is also a support nightmare: there are a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing.

If that's the case, won't the metro new UI will be actually easier for them? :/ They don't need to switch to new UI, hide the desktop tile and most people won't see it.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I REALLY Don't want to give Microsoft ANY money for Windows 8. Not that i would pirate it and not pay them, I just don't want it. I really don't want them to financially benefit from me what so ever. The Problem is I have to have windows 8 on some machine. I want to be able to reference it, and I also want customers to try it out before they buy a new computer. So I guess (only because I have to) will give them money for a VM install. It kills me to, but I have to.

[srbeen]

Here is Blog post on multi monitor solutions

http://blogs.msdn.co...e-monitors.aspx

Multi-monitor taskbar

Of course the main reason most people use multi-monitor configurations is to be more productive. With the extra screen real estate you are able to see more windows up at the same time. The flip side to having more windows visible is that window management can become more challenging. In the desktop, the taskbar is the primary place for managing windows. As some of you pointed out to us in our Windows 7 blogs, lack of multi-monitor support for the taskbar is a gap. This can be summed up by one comment from the e7 blog:

@

AlexJerebtsov

, ?

The lack of multi-monitor [Taskbar] support is just about a crime?.

What?s interesting about adding multi-monitor support to the taskbar is that even among a relatively small group of users, there are several opinions as to what the ?right? design should be. As you can imagine, this is quite common in designing a new version of Windows?there are many points of view on how even relatively small things should be implemented. These are some observations from a variety of hands-on research methods:

• People tend to approach window management in either an organized or an ad-hoc fashion. People who manage windows in an ad-hoc fashion frequently move windows between monitors as their workflow requires, and do not keep track of what monitor a window is on. People that manage windows in a more organized fashion tend to designate specific monitors for specific apps and tasks (for example, email always on the left, the browser always on the right). There is not always a hard line between these two working styles and most people move windows in an ad-hoc fashion from time to time.
  
• Improved efficiency was consistently cited as a goal for the taskbar. Nearly all users conveyed the desire for improved taskbar efficiency. When we observed people using multiple monitors in their work, we noticed that the simple act of switching windows would sometimes require them to turn their heads, swivel in their seats, and reposition their mouse cursor as they jumped from a secondary monitor to the main taskbar monitor and all the way back again. Of course we also heard this articulated in term of mouse-efficiency. That is, we want to reduce the distance that you need to move the mouse to find and switch to a window on the taskbar.
  
• It is common for people to have a primary monitor. Many people have one monitor that they run most of their apps on, with a smaller secondary monitor that has a few windows open for peripheral tasks (for example, managing a playlist, sending IMs, playing a video). This is particularly true for users who have kept their old monitor on-hand after upgrading to a newer, bigger, higher-resolution monitor. Ad hoc users still move windows freely between monitors, but tend to prefer one over the other for the tasks that they are currently focusing on, partly because it is comfortable to set up a chair, keyboard, and mouse to face one monitor directly.
  
• Taskbar real estate is generally not a problem. When we designed the taskbar we were fairly confident that most people would find the default setting sufficient even with customization easy to find. Hands-on research confirms the majority of users keep the default setting where windows are grouped by app on the taskbar. Telemetry that looked at hundreds of millions of sessions further confirmed that only 6% of users ungroup taskbar buttons.
  

Multi-monitor taskbar options

Based on our field and lab observations we understood that people employ different window management techniques (always ad-hoc, always organized, mixed). For this reason, we chose to provide several multi-monitor taskbar options, so that advanced users with multiple monitors can still fine-tune their desktop experience.

Windows 8 taskbar properties

• Show taskbar buttons on the taskbar where the window is open. This is the most obvious option that comes to mind when thinking of a multi-monitor taskbar. In this configuration, each monitor?s taskbar contains icons for only the windows that are on that monitor. The advantage of this option is that it is simple and predictable. This tested well with people who were very organized in their placement of windows, or who had dedicated monitors for specific tasks. On the other hand, ad-hoc users found this design to be inefficient, as they needed to remember what monitor a particular window was on.
  

App buttons on the taskbar where the window is open

• Show taskbar buttons on main taskbar and taskbar where window is open. In this configuration, the main monitor has a special taskbar that contains all the windows across all monitors. All the other monitors have unique taskbars, as with the first option described above. This option offers some of the cleanliness of the taskbar where the window is open model, but also offers a consistent and efficient way to get to any window via the master taskbar. People who think in terms of a primary monitor will probably prefer this option.
  

App buttons on main taskbar and where window is open

• Show taskbar buttons on all taskbars (default). In this configuration, all windows are available on all taskbars. This configuration is designed for maximum mouse efficiency because you can always activate any window from any monitor. Of all the options, this works the best for ad-hoc windows management, as there is no need to keep track of where windows are located. While some users indicated a preference for one of the other options, this was the only option that was efficient for the vast majority of users, which is why this is the default setting.
  

App buttons on all taskbars (default option)

Some changes for the Release Preview

For those of you who have used the Consumer Preview on multiple monitors, you?ll notice that Start, the charms, and the clock are only shown on a single monitor. The feedback has been vocal and clear on this and of course, given the prevalence of multi-monitor setups even in our own hallways, we understood that this feature simply wasn?t complete. Looking forward, here?s a sneak peak at some of the improvements we?re making to multi-monitor usage for the Release Preview.

No broken corners and edges

On the Consumer Preview in a multi-monitor setup, it is difficult to find the Start screen and other UI that is invoked from the corners with a mouse, since those activation areas are only available on a single monitor. In the upcoming Release Preview, we are making all the corners and edges alive on all monitors. You can now bring up Start, the charms, and app switching from the corners of any monitor. Want Start on monitor 1? Just go to the bottom-left corner on that monitor. Want it on monitor 2? Go to the bottom-left corner on monitor 2. This not only improves discoverability, it also improves mouse efficiency and multitasking. To launch or move an app to a specific monitor, bring up Start on that monitor and launch the app, or switch to the app using the app switcher at the left edge.

You can launch Start on any monitor:

You can switch back to recently used apps from any monitor:

And you can bring up the charms on any monitor:

Launch and move Metro style apps to any monitor

There are several ways that you can launch and move an app:

• Start. You can bring up Start on any monitor by moving your mouse to the bottom-left corner, or via the Start charm that you can invoke from the top and bottom-right corners of any monitor. Pressing the Windows key launches Start on the last monitor where Start or a Metro style app appeared.
  

• Switch back to an app from any monitor. You can switch back to an app on any monitor by moving your mouse to the top-left corner. Clicking the app thumbnail switches you back to the app on that monitor.
  

• Keyboard shortcuts. We are introducing new keyboard shortcuts that build on the shortcuts from Windows 7. Win+Pg Up or Win+Pg Dn moves Metro style apps across monitors. Win+Arrow and Win+Shift+Arrow continue to work on desktop apps as they did in Windows 7, by snapping and moving desktop windows across monitors.
  

• Drag and drop. Using the mouse, you can now drag and drop Metro Style apps across monitors. Drag and drop works for both full screen and snapped apps.
  

Improved mouse targeting on the shared edge

A multi-monitor setup brings the major benefit of more real estate, but it also lacks the Fitts' Law benefits of hard edges and corners across displays. While it?s extremely easy to trigger corner UI such as Start, charms, or recently used apps on a single monitor, it isn?t uncommon to overshoot the mouse when the corner appears on a shared edge on a multi-monitor configuration.

With multiple monitors in fact, targeting the shared edge can be downright difficult. Move a few pixels too far and your cursor is suddenly on the wrong monitor. This has been a common challenge in previous versions of Windows as well, like when you?re trying to hit the close button or scroll bars on a maximized window on a shared edge. Many work around this by remembering to move the mouse slowly as it approaches a shared edge or by avoiding window layouts that bump up against those edges. We commonly observe this behavior in our own usage and in field studies.

In the Release Preview, we?re introducing an improved model for shared edges that makes it easier to target UI along a shared edge.

Since corners are even more important for Windows 8, we?ve created real corners along the shared edges to mimic the Fitts? Law advantages of a single monitor. The red corners in the diagram below demonstrate how these corners can help guide your mouse.

We?ve designed the corners to provide help when you need it and to get out of the way when you don?t. The protruding corner target is 6 pixels in height, which means that it is only noticeable when you?re trying to target the corner of the screen. Also, we?ve designed the corner to only work for the monitor your cursor is on. For example, leaving monitor 2 for monitor 1 in the diagram below, the bottom corner in monitor 1 will not interfere as you move your mouse across the shared edge.

Shared corner does not block cross monitor navigation

The shared corner isn?t just an improvement for the new Windows 8 UI, but it also makes it easier to target controls on the desktop likeClose and Show desktop. As a result, targeting shared corners is fast and fluid. First-hand experience is a must with this design, as you will notice this improvement right away when using the new Release Preview.

We recognize that a key value of using multiple monitors lies in the desire to increase multitasking. This is especially true of those of you who spend time arranging your desktop windows to maximize the available real estate across multiple displays. Speaking firsthand, most developers and testers at Microsoft have a multi-monitor setup in their offices, walking through the hallways one sees a wide range of monitor configurations from 2 to 4 or more monitors among the engineering team. This affords two important scenarios. First, developers can use a tool like Visual Studio on one screen and have the running/debugged program on another, or they can add an additional monitor and reserve it for side tasks such as email or web browsing.

With that in mind, we set out to achieve the following goals for those using multiple monitors with Windows 8:

• Make the desktop a more personal experience. Perhaps the most personalized feature on the desktop is the ability to customize the desktop background. We set out to make this a great experience on multiple monitors too.
  
• Improve the efficiency of accessing apps across monitors. In Windows 7, the top request from people using multiple monitors was to improve the taskbar efficiency.
  
• Improve the efficiency of accessing system UI. In Windows 7, you could only access the Start menu on one monitor. With the introduction in Windows 8 of new UI that puts controls at the edges of the screen, we wanted to make sure that it?s still easy to access Start, the charms, the clock, and your recently used apps from every monitor.
  
• Allow side-by-side Metro style and desktop apps. You can launch or move a Metro style app to any monitor, side-by-side with desktop apps on another screen.
  

Examples of multi-monitor configurations in Microsoft offices

Amazing post, but all I really got from it was desktop systems with 2 or more monitors work better with metro.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I don't think you have a grasp on just how little the average person knows about computers. Some people struggle switching between two different programs, now Microsoft is asking people to switch between two different environments. The reason Windows 8 will be a support nightmare is a magnified version of why Windows 7 is also a support nightmare: there are a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing.

Exactly, it just goes to show from Dot's Responce that he has never done support.

[+virtorio MVC]

If that's the case, won't the metro new UI will be actually easier for them? :/ They don't need to switch to new UI, hide the desktop tile and most people won't see it.

Once a decent range of software is available and people have had plenty of time to get used to it then theoretically yes. That is currently not the case so people are going to be forced to switch between them.

The average person knows more than you give them credit for. Especially, the people of mine and younger generations.

Those people you describe aren't the ones who need help and aren't going to call tech support in the first place to find out how to use something (they're going to just search the Internet to find out).

There is a much larger group of people (some older, some that just never "got into" computers) that are going to struggle with the change and are going to need support.

[HawkMan]

Just to make it clear to the OP, you did not downgrade, you tried the OS and chose not to upgrade. But you did not downgrade. Since no computers have been released with Win8 yet, you can't either. And since MS most likely won't offer a downgrade option like they did for vista, you're not likely to.

Exactly, it just goes to show from Dot's Responce that he has never done support.

I have do e support. And windows 8 would have made my life doing support a LOT easier over xp and vista and 7.

[Dot Matrix]

Those people you describe aren't the ones who need help and aren't going to call tech support in the first place to find out how to use something (they're going to just search the Internet to find out).

There is a much larger group of people (some older, some that just never "got into" computers) that are going to struggle with the change and are going to need support.

So then what you are saying is Windows 8 will be no different than supporting previous Windows versions. Got it. Case closed. Much ado about nothing.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just to make it clear to the OP, you did not downgrade, you tried the OS and chose not to upgrade. But you did not downgrade. Since no computers have been released with Win8 yet, you can't either. And since MS most likely won't offer a downgrade option like they did for vista, you're not likely to.

I have do e support. And windows 8 would have made my life doing support a LOT easier over xp and vista and 7.

Easier how?

[hagjohn]

I'd like to get a 2nd monitor. I have 2 at work and I love it. I think having 2 at home will make Win8 even better.

[hagjohn]

oops... double post. :(

[d4rk5ky]

The negatives definitely outweigh the positives for me, so ill be sticking with 7 until 9 comes out or until support for 7 ends.

[HawkMan]

Easier how?

Far easier to guide people to where you need them to be.

[Navan]

/facepalm

Oh, you're so clever. Only if you bothered to read my entire post. /facepalm

[Vice]

Far easier to guide people to where you need them to be.

HawkMan: "Ok ma'am I want you to slide your mouse to the top right of the screen and a menu will pop out"

Customer: "I saw something pop out but it's gone now"

HawkMan: "Ok, try again this time move your mouse down afterwards vertically and click on the Settings button"

Customer: "Every time I try to click on the Settings button the menu disappears!"

HawkMan: "That is because you're not dragging the mouse down from the corner perfectly vertical"

Customer: "I am!"

5 Minutes later...

Customer: "Ok I'm in Settings"

HawkMan: "Ok.. *palmface* now click on Restart and wait for your computer to reboot"