I finally got around to installing that copy of the Windows 8 preview I downloaded a couple of months ago. I've been dreading it for awhile, and most of my suspicions were well-founded. It appears the Windows 8 interface was designed exclusively with tablets in mind, which is fine... if you're working on a tablet.
As a desktop operating system, this interface absolutely sucks. To log in, for instance, you need to "swipe" a wallpaper/clock image off the screen. This is incredibly unintuitive with a mouse, as you have to click, hold, and "throw" the image off the screen. I'm hoping Win8 will change before launch to automatically detect the kind of machine you're using during the installation phase and disable this touch-specific BS.
The Start menu has now been replaced by a god-awful thumbnail application that pops up on launch. It covers the entire screen and, for a moment, I was wondering if the traditional Windows application bar and desktop had been removed entirely. The traditional minimize/maximize/close buttons are pretty much gone, and I'm having a hell of a time figuring out how to consistently minimize the Start application. Once again, I'm sure it is completely intuitive on a tablet, but tablets are still a tiny percentage of the computing market.
I don't quite get the fish logo. This replaces the colorful Windows logo that displays when the OS is started. I'm sure this will change.
The OS installer is virtually identical to Windows 7. Once the OS is loaded and started for the first time, you get this oddball app that walks you through configuration of the OS.
Perhaps the oddest change is the integration of the Microsoft Passport (or whatever they call it now) account system into the desktop authentication scheme. You now use your central Microsoft account (TechNet, XBox Live, etc) to sign into your OS.
You also add your phone number to your Microsoft account for password resets. I'm not sure how that's going to work out.
Here's the Start application I was complaining about. Like everything else, it is built for a touch interface, so you have to drag your way around the application.
This is the image you see when you first boot the system. You have to drag this screen away to get to the logon screen. It's incredibly unintuitive with a mouse.
It seems like Windows 8 has tacked on another way to do just about everything. The control panel is still available, but much of the functionality has been moved to this thing. Notice there is no obvious way to minimize, maximize, or close this application. You have to move your mouse down the lower right corner to get the prompt, and if you accidentally move your mouse outside of the menu, it disappears and you have to start over.
And finally, the desktop. After some finagling, I've managed to get it semi-useful. Notice the missing Start button, though.
At the end of the day, this reminds me of the annoying desktop management applications that many OEMs shipped on top of Windows 95. The one I'm most familiar with is Acer Computer Explorer, or ACE. When Windows launched, this application launched on top of the desktop and completely obscured the Start bar, desktop, etc. It took up the full screen. Many Acer owners never even knew this thing was itself an application and not the OS. In short, it was crap.
-b0b
(...is definitely not a fan.)
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