There is a desktop, complete with a taskbar, but there is no start button. The home screen (with tiles for all the installed applications/apps) is considered the replacement for the start menu.
There are third-party utilities that add the start menu to a Win-8 system though.
Ah, yes. That makes sense. I stand corrected.
I now love Windows 8, with some caveats…
Metro and the apps annoyed the hell out of me, and often still do. Once I installed a 3rd party desktop menu replacement though, like Pokki (Mrs Gargoyle uses it) or ClassicShell (I use this one), and a 3rd party file manager (I use Cubic Explorer) you can deal with the environment on your own terms and customize your preferences even greater than you could in Win 7. In my case, I have set the default to waken/boot into the desktop, and have many lovely favorited and nested start menu setups that bring an efficiency to windows that never existed before.
So, out of the box Windows 8 is a nightmarish hell. It can pretty easily be customized though to make it (IMHO) the best Windows version ever. Ironically, by turning off or redirecting most/all of the default Metro or other hand-holding behavior.
MS’s app store remains a dreadful mess and is best avoided.
Assuming you know the exact name of what you’re looking for, just start typing in the Start Screen to search. I use desktop and Start Bar pins for my commonly used stuff, but usually go into the start menu and search if my desktop icons are covered by windows. Like, to open Word, just hit windows key, type “wor”, hit enter. Easy Peasy.
Wasn’t one of Apple’s original complaints about Windows the fact that they switched from the windows dividing up the screen to overlapping, floating windows?
I like to think I am intelligent and I work with technology for a living but when I tried to help my girlfriend with some simple things on her new Windows 8 laptop I found it baffling. Sure I got it eventually but it just seemed like a fight with the interface every step of the way.
New is not necessarily bad but it can be and this is. They should have made two flavors of Windows, one for touch screens and one for Desktop/laptops. Hell, why not include a “Classic View” option to make it look more like we are used to?
Are these your thoughts? Or are you speculating that these are Microsofts? Or both?
since it’s not likely any of us know Microsoft’s “thoughts” (as if a corporation could have thoughts in the first place) what answer do you expect to get?
I have never NEVER gotten a new computer OR an upgrade that DIDN’T require me to go “futzing around with it” to keep it in my “comfort zone”. Or a new car, for that matter. Or a new dishwasher. Technology changes and I have to fiddle with it to get it right for me. Oh woe.
Vista was widely thought to be a bad OS. Did that stop people from buying new computers? No. They often downgraded back to XP, but they still bought computers. The fact that Microsoft doesn’t seem to be allowing a similar built-in rollback to Windows 7 makes me think that Windows 8 PCs are doing fine. It’s just that now the market share is divided with tablets.
If you discount sales that would have been for netbooks or casual laptops (where the tablet form does make more sense), I bet PC sales are about the same or only a little worse.
Whilst anything I think about Microsoft would be prejudiced — and their fumblings with Windows 8 parallel Ubuntu’s previous self-destruction in swapping in Unity/Hud for the same reasons — perhaps the product isn’t wrong so much as maimed.
I love Firefox, but they have kept copying Chrome and other browsers trending minimalistic features to such an extent I’m not sure my heavily modded — not only with extensions, but more about:config rigs that I could ever duplicate elsewhere — profile would be recognised as the current Firefox. From switching tabs underneath to restoring the http:// full url, correcting the list of imbecilic decisions made merely to mimic Chrome to restore it to usability has made it a treadmill race just to keep going.
However the product itself is still the best.
That’s why I said speculating. 
The news about the sales numbers were not that they were down, but that they were down by far more than the analysts had expected. And a good bit of that was lower than expected Win 8 sales. In fact, business sales pretty much matched expectations, since businesses are not switching to tablets and because businesses never switch to a new OS that quickly. The hurt is in the consumer market.
Reality Chuck:
Seriously? Do you not read Windows 8 threads on this board and elsewhere?
Windows 7 was able to play DVDs. Windows 8 out-of-the-box can’t.
Windows 7 had games, such as Solitaire and Minesweeper. Windows 8 out-of-the-box doesn’t.
Windows 7 had a programs menu that you could arrange in a nested hierarchy. Windows 8 out-of-the-box doesn’t.
Am I hating it just because I don’t like things that are different?
Most of my interaction with MS is in a corporate environment, as in, I manage the contract and relationship for a really huge company.
My take is, corporate users are their bread and butter. We don’t want to buy touchscreens for our users, we don’t want their scummy fingers over touchscreens. We want them to edit spreadsheets in Excel and type documents in Word, and the OS is simply something that shouldnt get in the way. What the fuck are they doing? Making Linux and Google desktops more attractive?
I heard they took away the “glass” look to the desktop too. Like they’re deliberately mucking it up to force people to use the touchscreen interface.
Correct me if I’m wrong. For the touchscreen interface, one MUST buy a monitor with this capability? To get everything M$ offers in Win 8, I’ve got to replace my 22" monitor?
What, they’ve got a lot of stock in LG, Samsung, etc… ?
Windows Blue, from what I have heard, is mostly going to be an upgrade to the mobile stuff. However, I just read today that Windows Blue may include putting the start menu back and may allow users to boot directly into desktop mode.
Here is the article I read if anyone is interested:
It’s not confirmed yet, but if it is true it may be that Microsoft is already listening to some of the backlash against Windows 8.
I think Windows 8 is great with touchscreens but not so much without touch. A few things like the “charms” are a little confusing and require a bit of a learning curve. I think most of the problems could be solved by giving users the option to go to a classic mode with a start button and the tiles turned off. This mode should be the default for computers without touchscreens.
I doubt that Windows 8 has much to do with the slowdown in PC sales and I suspect that as prices come down on the convertible tablets and as consumers get used to the new UI sales will pick up. This is not a sprint. It's a pretty radical change in the PC user experience which will probably take a few years to make its mark.Nope. All the touchscreen interfaces work just fine with a keyboard and mouse. For the gestures that involve swiping in from the side of the screen, you just hold your cursor there for half a second.
[Edit: This isn’t to say that they’re better than interface elements designed for keyboard/mouse, just that they work. You don’t need to buy a new monitor.]