Not impressed by metro start screen?


Recommended Posts

I like many others was not impressed with the way Microsoft was going with Windows 8. But there is no denying that it have lots of great features and improvements over previous versions of Windows. Being up to date is always the best choice. But how can we avoid such a terrible invention like metro start screen?

There is some ways you can avoid it completely with third party software and even adding the old start menu back. But is this the best way to deal with it?

I decided to give Windows 8 a shot and by removing all the silly apps and doing some customization, I have grown very fond of metro start screen. In fact, I find it much more convenient now compare to old start menu. I would like to show my desktop and start screen and perhaps that will give some of you inspiration to try Windows 8 as well.

GeZFn.jpg

wLf51.jpg

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1096609-not-impressed-by-metro-start-screen/
Share on other sites

Thanks for posting this. It's a good example of how useful the start screen can be to the self-proclaimed power users. Microsoft actually does know what it's doing :)

I think you'll realize after a while that the built in apps are more useful than you think :) But I'm glad you found a way to make it work instead of trying to turn it off and then coming in here and complaining (you know who you are)

  • Like 3

For a desktop user like myself, the whole app and touch things in windows 8 is probably what scares most of the people to use it. But what can be seen on my screenshots is that even for a desktop user there is benefits using the start screen. I personally prefer a clean look not showing anything more then what I actually need and the start screen gives me just that option.

I think the Start screen looked much better in the Release Preview than it does in RTM. the smaller icons for desktop applications creates a cleaner look. the large icons used in RTM clash with the flatter Metro aesthetic. most importantly the desktop applications' tile color blends in nicely making everything more cohesive.

that said, you must customize the Start screen to your liking. create groups. remove unecessary tiles. turn live tiles on or off. remember, you can always pin applications to the taskbar, place shortcuts on your desktop, or launch programs with Start search.

(I assume MS only made the icons larger in RTM after they decided to make the font size small like the Metro app tiles. smaller font had to be balanced with a larger icon. Rational, but uglier imo.)

qzrsjl.jpg

I use Classic Shell to replace the Metro Start Screen and to boot directly to the desktop. Deleted every single button/mickey mouse gimmick from the Metro Start Screen EXCEPT for the 'Desktop' button. I've been running this OS for days straight now and I've yet to see the Start Screen or any of the other metro stuff, so to me this is almost the same as Windows 7. I got this OS as close to Windows 7 as possible without it being Win7. Can't really complain

Agreed.. it looks nice, but that doesn't make it more functional than the start menu was..It does make it take up far more space though.. which can be a pain depending on your mouse speed and resolution..

That said, those do look nice.. Wish you could make your own tile icons though.. rather than it just using the app icon :/

How dare you try out the OS and try to see if you can make it work for you before coming on here and discussing it. I'm going to report you.

On a serious note though, love how IE 10 autocorrects lol

Oh, look how interesting... you have a second desktop, and not a start menu, and you know the worst part about that those don't even look as nice, or as clean as it does on the desktop. You have a small icon inside a large box that does nothing other than provide some waist of space to your screen.

While the idea of the new 'start page' was interesting, the whole thing is a lot less productive with a keyboard and mouse then the traditional start menu. This design is clearly for devices that have a touch screen.

Now that is not to say its bad, no its actually rather good for that. That includes pc's, laptops and other devices with a touch screen. If your interacting with your computing device with your fingers its good. However, if your using a keyboard and mouse, or even a touchpad, then its not so hot. There are a lot of options that are hidden, there is no back or close button that I've found yet on the metro apps, and to close a metro app you have to go to the desktop, put your mouse to the side of the screen and then drag the thing off the bottom of the middle of the screen. That is not something that I would call convenient. Before you even get into how windows 8 is supposed to manage those programs and the memory they use, well lets just put it mildly by saying that is not such a good thing either. That is a good way to introduce crashes and blue screens to a system.

I like to have control of my system, and without a lot of work windows 8, and by extension Microsoft, has more control of the system now than ever.

The privacy issues surrounding the live apps is horrifying as well if you stop and think about it. Sure you might point out that you have the same kind of issues with ios and android, but the issue really comes down to is most malicious software is written for windows, and this is going to be a very large, and juicy target.

Not to say its all doom and gloom, there are a lot of nice improvements in windows 8, but right now the lack of being able to select between a start menu and their 'start page' is more than I'm willing to deal with. It would be easy to say this version of windows is likely to go the way of windows me, but the price point they are offering it at will probably be enough to compensate for the lackluster design choices.

Why are people saying its an OS made for a touch screen and not a desktop?? Am I missing something? Is there like some secret hard to navigate desktop I'm missing?? I'd like to know so I can tell my mom to avoid it. She's using Windows 8 and loves metro. She doesn't know jack about computers so I was worried but she runs all her stuff with ease.

Let me know what you guys found that doesn't work good on a keyboard mouse, like I said so I can tell my mom to avoid it.

Put your mouse to the edge of the left side of the screen and wait for that nice menu to come up, select setting, and go into one of the customization options, play around in there to your hearts content. Now find the close button, back button.... found it yet?

I'm waiting, are you able to find one at all? No? Surprise, your on a desktop you don't have the nice buttons like you do on a phone or tablet that let you go back. So instead of doing something simple with a click of a mouse button, you now have to find the correct button on your keyboard to take you back to the 'start page', you wanted to go too your desktop too bad you can't do that you have to go back to the 'start page'. Well I guess that would be the case if you hadn't already launched the 'desktop app' then I guess you could mouse over to the right hand side of your screen and click on that popup. Seriously no you can't close that app, you really want to well you have to either launch task manager or you need to go to the 'desktop app' and then mouse over to the left hand side of your screen and make that menu slide out, then grab the image of the app you want to close and drag it out and then down to the bottom of your screen. Though I'm not even sure if that properly closes the app.

If you can't see the similarities between windows 8 and either of the other two major tablet os's you need some help.

But, yeah, if you don't really know a lot about computers then windows 8 is probably going to be ok for you.

And you didn't read my comment properly I didn't say it wasn't designed for a desktop, I said it wasn't designed for a keyboard and mouse. There is a major difference there. You can get pc's that have a touchscreen, and you can get laptops just the same if you want to pay for one, but metro itself was designed around the idea of using your fingers on the screen to interact with it, not a keyboard and mouse.

Agreed.. it looks nice, but that doesn't make it more functional than the start menu was..It does make it take up far more space though.. which can be a pain depending on your mouse speed and resolution..

That said, those do look nice.. Wish you could make your own tile icons though.. rather than it just using the app icon :/

http://customization...t.com/#/d4z4ny9

Doesn't take over your entire screen when you want to use it. Not that I recommend using it either, I think metro "tiles" are largely a waste of space.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • It's amazing that anyone still uses this bloated trash.
    • @Sayan...I have defended you at various points as I hope you know. This headline however is utter trash...shame on you sir!
    • An actual cosmic "Eye of Sauron" had been looking straight at us all along by Sayan Sen Image by Kovin P. Vasquez via Pexels | Not representative An international team of researchers has solved a long-standing mystery surrounding a distant blazar known as PKS 1424+240, helping explain why it produces some of the brightest high-energy gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed despite appearing to have a relatively slow-moving jet. The findings were published on June 6 in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. The study addresses a broader challenge in astrophysics: understanding how extreme cosmic objects accelerate particles to very high energies and produce very high-energy (VHE) photons and neutrinos. PKS 1424+240 is located billions of light-years from Earth. It has attracted attention for years because it is both a powerful source of VHE gamma rays and the brightest known neutrino-emitting blazar in the sky, according to observations by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. It is also associated with one of the strongest peaks in IceCube's nine-year neutrino sky map A blazar is a type of active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole that pulls in surrounding matter and launches jets of plasma moving close to the speed of light. What makes blazars unique is their orientation. One of their jets points almost directly toward Earth, making them appear exceptionally bright across the electromagnetic spectrum and allowing scientists to study some of the most extreme physical processes in the Universe. The scientists exclaimed it's like the 'Eye of Sauron' in deep space. Usually, the brightest gamma-ray-emitting blazars are expected to have jets that appear to move very quickly. However, radio observations of PKS 1424+240 suggested that its jet was moving much more slowly, creating a contradiction that became part of a long-running problem known as the "Doppler factor crisis." To investigate, researchers analyzed 15 years of observations from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a network of 10 radio antennas spread across the continental United States, Hawaii and St. Croix. Using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), astronomers combine signals from widely separated radio telescopes to create a virtual Earth-sized telescope capable of revealing extremely fine details. The team combined 42 polarization-sensitive radio images collected between 2009 and 2025, creating a much deeper and more detailed view of the jet than had previously been possible. The observations were carried out as part of MOJAVE (Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments), a long-running program that studies the brightness, polarization and magnetic field structures of jets produced by active galaxies. The project aims to better understand how activity near supermassive black holes is linked to high-energy radiation and neutrino emission. “When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,” said Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded MuSES project at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “We have never seen anything quite like it — a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.” The image revealed an unusual geometry. The researchers found that Earth lies almost directly in line with the jet, with a viewing angle of less than 0.6 degrees. In simple terms, astronomers are looking almost straight down the jet. This turned out to be the key to the mystery. Because the jet is aimed almost directly at Earth, a relativistic effect called Doppler boosting dramatically increases its apparent brightness. The study found that this effect boosts the emission by a factor of about 30 while also making the jet appear slower than it actually is. “This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,” said Jack Livingston, a co-author at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects — a classic optical illusion.” The nearly head-on view also gave scientists a rare look at the jet's magnetic field. Using polarized radio signals, they detected a clear toroidal, or doughnut-shaped, magnetic field component. The observations suggest the jet carries an electric current and that its magnetic field helps launch, shape and stabilize the flow of plasma. Researchers believe this magnetic structure may also play a key role in accelerating particles to energies high enough to produce both gamma rays and neutrinos. “Solving this puzzle confirms that active galactic nuclei with supermassive black holes are not only powerful accelerators of electrons, but also of protons — the origin of the observed high-energy neutrinos,” Kovalev said. The research was conducted under the MuSES (Multi-messenger Studies of Energetic Sources) project, which investigates how active galactic nuclei accelerate particles and generate different cosmic signals, including light and neutrinos. Scientists say understanding how protons are accelerated and linked to neutrino production remains one of the major unanswered questions in astrophysics. The findings help explain why some blazars can appear to have slow jets while still producing extremely bright high-energy emissions. More broadly, the study strengthens the link between relativistic jets, magnetic fields, gamma rays and high-energy neutrinos. Researchers say the results provide new clues about how some of the Universe's most powerful natural particle accelerators work and offer important insights for multimessenger astronomy, which combines different types of cosmic signals to study extreme events in space. Source: European Research Council, EDP Sciences This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
    • Gotenks98 is right... Outlook (new) is absolute trash. Doesn't Mozilla have an Enterprise Version of Firebird?
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Reacting Well
      X-No-file earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • One Month Later
      pestcontrol46 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      pestcontrol46 earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      510
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      273
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      75
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      72
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      69
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!