I want to state again that it is completely possible to set up Windows 8 to act similar to all their previous operating systems. I’ve done it without using a shell. However, to get to those settings is not at all intuitive, and you have to do it piecemeal, so I am on board with the OP.
The problem is that they tried to be like Apple and failed miserably. The functionality is still there (unlike Apple, where too frequently it’s not there at all), but it’s way too hard to find and not at all intuitive. Windows 8.1 promises to fix that, but… we’ll see.
In my opinion, if a new program requires me to download and install new programs and then reconfigure my settings - all so that the new program will work about as well as a program that was developed over a decade ago - then the new program is a failure. Windows 8 is New Coke - it’s being sold as the newer version but everyone can see the older version was better.
Confused? Well, the important thing is that the basic number tells developers about the libraries and tools available that make a program to be compatible with a Windows OS, Windows 8 has Version 6.2 under the hood, significant, but for program operations most of what is there under the hood is still [del]Vista[/del] Windows 7 with touch and Metro interface added.
I suspected as much. As I’ve said earlier, everything is still there and you can set it up so all the new bells and whistles don’t annoy you that much. They didn’t actually get rid of anything - just made the settings hard to find in a dumbass attempt to compete with Apple’s “idiot proof” philosophy.
It’s a little odd that I find myself defending Windows 8, though, because I think it’s a wrong headed failure. It’s not that bad, though. Anybody remember Windows M.E. ?
For an IT like me (With social studies, history and graphics background too) mentioning Windows ME * is like mentioning Highlander 2 to a movie fan.
What are you talking about? That did not exit.
Piece of crap had me installing it several times on different machines until I managed to make it work somehow and crashed many times. At the University I worked before, we never installed it in the campus offices, we jumped from windows 98 or 2000 to XP.
I had the same reaction as the OP when I first booted up Win 8. But yes, you can make it work for you just fine if you mess around with it for a while, no classic shell required. You can completely get rid of all the Metro crap and do everything from the desktop. The way I have mine set up now, it just feels like a better version of Win 7. I don’t even miss the start menu and wouldn’t want to go back to it. When you delete absolutely everything from the start screen and just pin the stuff you actually use on there, it’s actually very nice. I’m completely happy with it now.
Even so, I still think the thing is probably the worst example ever of botched project management, and if you’re not particularly computer savvy, it must be a complete and continuous brainfuck. The same if you’re cursed enough to be in a situation where you need to use a computer that you can’t set up yourself. No one I have spoken to finds it usable right out of the box, and a product that you have to beat into shape before you can use counts as a failure in my book.
I certainly suspect that my mother’s head will explode if she gets a Win 8 computer, unless I can get to it and set it up properly before she turns it on.
My biggest fear, the one that makes me wake up screaming in the middle of the night, is that Microsoft won’t get the message, and will keep pushing the Metro shit even further in Win 9, maybe even losing the desktop completely. Then it’ll be Linux for me.
I’m still adapting to Windows 8, and since most of the software I use regularly (Thunderbird, Chrome, a few games, and such) all stay on the Desktop side, the Metro side is pretty much immaterial to me. I do have a touchscreen laptop, which might help. I don’t loathe 8, but do think a lot of the “cosmetics before function” aspects had to have been pushed by marketing droids with Apple envy (not that I get that either, I dislike Mac OS) with no input from anyone with any working knowledge of the real world or how real computers get used.
Of course, I never understood the Vista hate either. The just-replaced Vista laptop served quite well for six years or more until hardware quirks started getting problematic.
“You will click on the devices icon, or charm, or whatever they call it now.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s not on the screen yet.”
“How can I click it if it’s not on the screen?”
“You need to get it to come up on the screen.”
“Where do I click to do that?”
“You don’t click anything, you just…”
“I thought you said click the device thingy. Where is it?”
I’ve used every version of Windows since 3.1, and the transitions were smooth right up to this one, which might as well be written in Etruscan and use 2 dimensional models of 6 dimensional space as a GUI.
I picked up Android pretty well right off the bat. Maybe Windows 8 is a perfectly fine system for a phone or a tablet. I don’t know. It sure as hell isn’t one I can troubleshoot on a desktop for my parents, and based on sitting there staring at the screen trying to figure out how the fuck I would even start to do anything it’s not one I’ll be moving to.
Seriously, Microsoft, I am old and becoming technologically irrelevant, but if you don’t fix this shit I will decide the learning curve is sufficient that I might as well go to Linux.
Turn off edge swiping in the mouse/trackpad settings. This problem will go away.
Also, not to be snarky, but you are not obliged to use the Modern UI apps - I’ve seen a number of people tearing their hair out and saying stuff like “OMG, I can’t STAND what the Windows 8 Mail app does to my Hotmail!”. The solution is just to carry on using Hotmail in your browser, like you always did in previous operating system versions.
Don’t like the ‘Metro’ Apps? Don’t use them. Uninstall them all - use traditional desktop apps - this is still possible (Unless you bought an RT device, in which case, my condolences).
Windows 8 isn’t so bad, IMO. But it does have one foot afloat and one ashore - as it’s trying to be the transitional step between desktop and tablet operating systems - making it not necessarily brilliant at either (unless tweaked).
This is exactly why, when we had to buy a new laptop for my BF a few months ago, I picked one with win7 on it. He’s not a computer person at all, gets frustrated quickly and easily by them, and he calls out for me to help him often enough as is.
We had the occasion to try out win8 beforehand and I saw how baffled he had been by it.
The things are associated by default with a bunch of file types. For me, that’s not a problem, but I know people to whom I can say “just change the file associations to the desktop programs you normally use”, and I might as well be speaking Klingon for all the sense it makes to them. In most cases there’s the added complication that they’re afraid to change anything.
That’s a fair comment - I haven’t encountered this myself (mostly because all of the Modern UI apps I’ve seen people struggling with (so far) don’t really interact with files - i.e. the mail, weather, news etc, and the app version of the browser)
This is why the Bodoni family will not be purchasing anything with Windows 8 on it, and why we won’t be upgrading our OS to Win8. If I buy a product, I expect it to WORK, unless it says “Assembly required”.
Really? I’ve never bothered to do any configs. I’ve been using Windows since 3.11. Before that, it was a TI-994A and then a Commodore 128. Never did Linux.
ETA: I DID have to tinker with settings for a couple of game programs in 3.11, but for the most part, the computer ran when it was hooked up.
I believe I got my Win8 Toshiba laptop in February (I got it with my tax refund). I have only now started to come to terms with the damn OS. I still dislike it but I’ve learned to make it do mostly what I want. I’ve even found a few apps that I like. I still miss 7 and I’m still endlessly tempted to downgrade but at least I no longer feel the need to throw my computer out a window on a regular basis.
