De gustibus non est disputandum. Personally, I hated the pointless transparency and fat window frames of Windows 7 and find the clean, flat, saturated colours of Win8 quite refreshing.
Same here. Though I find using Win7 at work kind of annoying as Win8.1 seems far easier to use to me (after I got used to it). And I’ve only ever used it with a mouse and keyboard - easy peasy.
Indeed. Microsoft’s move to flat design is being copied by everyone (I thought it was amusing when around the web some Apple fans thought Google was copying flat design from Apple - until it was pointed out that Microsoft did it first).
Or even just hit one of the handy Windows keys.
In general I agree, but that Recycle Bin does look like crap. It’s not just flat–it also totally misunderstands the aesthetic. The aesthetic is supposed to be solid flat shapes, not something with lines drawn around it. And it needs to be bin-shaped, smaller at the bottom than the top. Every other icon has perspective…
It’s not that they want it to be exactly the same. People prefer small changes, but Windows 8 is a big change. It’s the biggest UI change Windows has gone through. At first I thought maybe from 3.1x to Windows 95 was just as big, but it really isn’t, thanks to what used to be called “metro” and all the gestures you had to learn that were not user-discoverable.
People tend to prefer iterative change. The new thing is there, along with all the old. But Windows 8 changed too much. Even Microsoft knows this–that’s why the start menu is back, and the whole metro thing is being put back into windows, essentially dying as a separate UI.
The problem with Windows 8 is that changes were made that didn’t need to be made, creating a learning curve that didn’t need to exist. That’s the sort of thing that frustrates people.
The only definitively worse thing I can think of is the lack of a frequently used programs feature. That was a great innovation from Windows XP that made things better. It’s not that I use the hierarchical Start Menu. It’s that I click a button, and all the programs I usually use are just there, without any effort on my part to put them there.
It was doing what computers are best at–organizing things for me. Fortunately, Windows 10 is bringing that back.
People want to cite the rapid adoption of Windows 8’s flat style? Then what about Microsoft making Windows 10 more like Windows 7?
He’s finding it more difficult because it’s like every other version of Windows before Windows 8. So don’t worry. Windows 10 is basically about going back to Windows 7 while keeping the actual good parts of 8.
Plus, if he likes the Start Screen so much, can’t he flip to tablet mode, which is supposed to still be the same as in Windows 8?
Right click open programs on the taskbar and click “pin to taskbar”, that’s a much better system than a frequently used programs list.
It’s not that - it’s simply that the start menu disappears easily, making it (imo) less easy to interact with the modern UI tiles. It feels a bit similar to the experience of trying to interact with dropdown menus on a touch screen - the thing you’re trying to deal with disappears mid flow.
It seems to me that Win10 is more Win8 than Win7. Maybe a Win7.75 
The flat modern UI style is still there - and I think one can customize how much space it takes up. Also its the same OS for phones/tablets/computers with varying modern UI space.
how is this different from the Start Menu in 7?
The start menu in Windows 7 does not have Modern UI tiles.
I am saying that in my experimental usage of the Windows 10 Technical Preview, the Modern UI tiles are harder to interact with, when they are in the side of the Start menu than they are in Windows 8.x, because the Start Menu has a habit of vanishing, whereas the W8 Start screen does not.