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I'm using 8 on my primary desktop right now, haven't upgraded to 8.1 yet. Typing this comment on my Macbook Pro. After using 8 for a while, I honestly don't se

I'm using 8 on my primary desktop right now, haven't upgraded to 8.1 yet. Typing this comment on my Macbook Pro. After using 8 for a while, I honestly don't see why people hate it so much. I don't use the Metro stuff, and the traditional Windows desktop experience is much faster. As a development environment I quite like it, and prefer it mightily over OSX as Apple tries to shoehorn that OS into an iOS-like frankenstein's monster. I'll be upgrading to 8.1 as soon as I feel like it, but I just came here to chime in that I really don't get why people abhor 8 so much in the first place. It kind of feels like piling-on to me with no real substance behind. As a developer anyway--I can't speak to a non-technical user's experience with it.

zobzu 13y ago
Probably because it's the cool thing to do. I know quite a few people, even some Linux devs that use Windows as their workstation (and a VM for linux). Why? Because it works. its fast. and the UI ain't bad, in fact (of the classic desktop that is). Basically, the polar opposite of what the "cool comment against windows" says.
kstrauser 13y ago
We bought my junior high-aged son a laptop for Christmas last year, and it came with Windows 8. He hates it. I promise you I didn't say anything bad about it (because who wants to convince someone not to like the gift you just gave them?), but he came to me a few days later asking if I could "upgrade it to Mac OS". His words, not mine. I think the reason he doesn't like it is that it's different from any computer he'd ever used at home or school before, and without any real benefit. He loves the Windows 7 gaming desktop we have in the living room but sees 8 as "weird" without a good reason for being so. I personally didn't have an opinion on it until I tried to install a network printer and ended up bouncing between the Win 7-style control panel and the Win 8-style wizard thingy because neither one held all of the settings required to make it work. After a few minutes of that, I was about ready to pitch it out the living room window. TL;DR it radically changed the UI without offering any noticeable advantages for having done so. That's why we came to not like it.
- YeahKIA 13y ago
  The mix of Metro UI and the old desktop has been the primary reason for people to not like windows 8. But they have made a lot if small tweaks to minimize the transition from Metro to old UI. That is the best part of Windows 8.1 to me.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Are there tweaks to completely get rid of metro? Will upgrading mess up things like classic start menu? I don't want to transition to a UI which, IMHO, is completely inappropriate for a normal desktop with a mouse and keyboard.
    - YeahKIA 13y ago
      I don't think there are ways to get rid if the Metro UI completely or at least I haven't come across any. Probably because I wasn't looking for one. The sequence of pressing Windows key and typing the name of the program is what I was using in Windows 7 anyway and that just works. One of my annoyances was how the control panel was still old UI and that has gone Metro in 8.1 which is nice. Also now since links from within IE open side by side and you have more control over how to layout windows in metro, I actually see myself using it more and more. one of the reasons for liking Windows 8 way more is getting a touch screen laptop. Metro is just so much nicer in a touch screen.
      - alan_cx 13y ago
        I notice here a lot of people seem to use the keyboard more than the mouse. My experience is the opposite. I want to click once or twice, not type stuff in. If I wanted to type, I'd use a command line, not a GUI. As for the touch screen thing, well, that's just it, isn't it? Its designed for a touch screen, not a K&M. But, sorry and all that, but Im happy with my current hardware and way of working. Am I now supposed to buy a 21inch touch screen, or mess up with fingers? Which is further away from my keyboard? Its not reasonable or practical. Let alone economic. All MS have to do is split the product. Win8 for computers, Metro for tablets. But no. For some bizarre reason us desk top users are having life made hard for zero good reason.
127 13y ago
It's difficult to find things you want. Application paradigm is broken down and it's incompatible with previous model. What was a nested directory is suddenly a flat list, with even all the unessential help text files. The new "apps" are completely worthless and have a very poor performance. It seems to me that Windows Search doesn't work half the time. With Windows 7 it worked all the time. There's so much useless things that I have no use for that only clutter the interface unnecessarily. It's very schizophrenic. Context switching is a very expensive operation for the human mind. Doing it for absolutely no reason what so ever is extremely annoying.
pasbesoin 13y ago
the traditional Windows desktop experience is much faster. Could someone speak briefly to the "faster" part of the parent's description? I'm currently reinstalling and have the choice between 7 and 8.
- darrylb42 13y ago
  Windows 8 Boots faster, wakes up faster. The GUI seems about the same to me, a lower end machine may find the GUI to be faster as Aero is gone. You just need to consider the Windows 8 menu screen like you would the Windows 7 start menu. It just covers the entire screen. You can ignore all the Windows 8 full screen applications for the most part, I am sure they are nice on a tablet but not on my 27" desktop screen. I find it easier to move between a Windows 7 machine at work and my Windows 8 machine at home then between XP and Windows 7, the old work home combination.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    Glass is gone. Aero isn't.
  - estel 13y ago
    The utility of the windows 8 full screen apps has improved quite a bit now that you can partition a large screen pretty freely with three or four of them. Even before then, I quite enjoyed using a few W8 apps because they could be laid out independently of the desktop, allowing Aero-snap to work more efficiently on the more transient windows. (These would usually be chat apps that I'd keep open in a panel).
tejinderss 13y ago
What is your development stack? Visual Studio?
- jasonkolb 13y ago
  Eclipse and sometimes IntelliJ Idea. No problems with either on Windows. And if you use an alternative shell or powershell you can use all the unix commands we know and love.
AllenKids 13y ago
Because it is inconsistent, jarring I might say for no benefit to the user even after a year. Yes, in many ways it is better than Windows 7 and in some ways it is better than OSX as Windows always has been. But in the most visible ways it is confusing, unnecessarily complex (with a minimalist style!) and get in the way of productivity obnoxiously. 1 example: Windows 8 changed the short cut for input method switching from Ctrl+Space to WinKey+Space, but take you to another dimension (aka Microsoft Design Language née Metro) with a stroke of the WinKey. Often for a multiple language user like myself, the OS beam me in and out of the full screen psychedelically colored app launcher during my Office™ sessions enough times to make me RAGE.

zobzu 13y ago

Probably because it's the cool thing to do. I know quite a few people, even some Linux devs that use Windows as their workstation (and a VM for linux). Why? Because it works. its fast. and the UI ain't bad, in fact (of the classic desktop that is). Basically, the polar opposite of what the "cool comment against windows" says.

kstrauser 13y ago

We bought my junior high-aged son a laptop for Christmas last year, and it came with Windows 8. He hates it. I promise you I didn't say anything bad about it (because who wants to convince someone not to like the gift you just gave them?), but he came to me a few days later asking if I could "upgrade it to Mac OS". His words, not mine. I think the reason he doesn't like it is that it's different from any computer he'd ever used at home or school before, and without any real benefit. He loves the Windows 7 gaming desktop we have in the living room but sees 8 as "weird" without a good reason for being so. I personally didn't have an opinion on it until I tried to install a network printer and ended up bouncing between the Win 7-style control panel and the Win 8-style wizard thingy because neither one held all of the settings required to make it work. After a few minutes of that, I was about ready to pitch it out the living room window. TL;DR it radically changed the UI without offering any noticeable advantages for having done so. That's why we came to not like it.

YeahKIA 13y ago
The mix of Metro UI and the old desktop has been the primary reason for people to not like windows 8. But they have made a lot if small tweaks to minimize the transition from Metro to old UI. That is the best part of Windows 8.1 to me.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Are there tweaks to completely get rid of metro? Will upgrading mess up things like classic start menu? I don't want to transition to a UI which, IMHO, is completely inappropriate for a normal desktop with a mouse and keyboard.
  - YeahKIA 13y ago
    I don't think there are ways to get rid if the Metro UI completely or at least I haven't come across any. Probably because I wasn't looking for one. The sequence of pressing Windows key and typing the name of the program is what I was using in Windows 7 anyway and that just works. One of my annoyances was how the control panel was still old UI and that has gone Metro in 8.1 which is nice. Also now since links from within IE open side by side and you have more control over how to layout windows in metro, I actually see myself using it more and more. one of the reasons for liking Windows 8 way more is getting a touch screen laptop. Metro is just so much nicer in a touch screen.
    - alan_cx 13y ago
      I notice here a lot of people seem to use the keyboard more than the mouse. My experience is the opposite. I want to click once or twice, not type stuff in. If I wanted to type, I'd use a command line, not a GUI. As for the touch screen thing, well, that's just it, isn't it? Its designed for a touch screen, not a K&M. But, sorry and all that, but Im happy with my current hardware and way of working. Am I now supposed to buy a 21inch touch screen, or mess up with fingers? Which is further away from my keyboard? Its not reasonable or practical. Let alone economic. All MS have to do is split the product. Win8 for computers, Metro for tablets. But no. For some bizarre reason us desk top users are having life made hard for zero good reason.

127 13y ago

It's difficult to find things you want. Application paradigm is broken down and it's incompatible with previous model. What was a nested directory is suddenly a flat list, with even all the unessential help text files. The new "apps" are completely worthless and have a very poor performance. It seems to me that Windows Search doesn't work half the time. With Windows 7 it worked all the time. There's so much useless things that I have no use for that only clutter the interface unnecessarily. It's very schizophrenic. Context switching is a very expensive operation for the human mind. Doing it for absolutely no reason what so ever is extremely annoying.

pasbesoin 13y ago

the traditional Windows desktop experience is much faster. Could someone speak briefly to the "faster" part of the parent's description? I'm currently reinstalling and have the choice between 7 and 8.

darrylb42 13y ago
Windows 8 Boots faster, wakes up faster. The GUI seems about the same to me, a lower end machine may find the GUI to be faster as Aero is gone. You just need to consider the Windows 8 menu screen like you would the Windows 7 start menu. It just covers the entire screen. You can ignore all the Windows 8 full screen applications for the most part, I am sure they are nice on a tablet but not on my 27" desktop screen. I find it easier to move between a Windows 7 machine at work and my Windows 8 machine at home then between XP and Windows 7, the old work home combination.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Glass is gone. Aero isn't.
- estel 13y ago
  The utility of the windows 8 full screen apps has improved quite a bit now that you can partition a large screen pretty freely with three or four of them. Even before then, I quite enjoyed using a few W8 apps because they could be laid out independently of the desktop, allowing Aero-snap to work more efficiently on the more transient windows. (These would usually be chat apps that I'd keep open in a panel).

tejinderss 13y ago

What is your development stack? Visual Studio?

jasonkolb 13y ago
Eclipse and sometimes IntelliJ Idea. No problems with either on Windows. And if you use an alternative shell or powershell you can use all the unix commands we know and love.

AllenKids 13y ago

Because it is inconsistent, jarring I might say for no benefit to the user even after a year. Yes, in many ways it is better than Windows 7 and in some ways it is better than OSX as Windows always has been. But in the most visible ways it is confusing, unnecessarily complex (with a minimalist style!) and get in the way of productivity obnoxiously. 1 example: Windows 8 changed the short cut for input method switching from Ctrl+Space to WinKey+Space, but take you to another dimension (aka Microsoft Design Language née Metro) with a stroke of the WinKey. Often for a multiple language user like myself, the OS beam me in and out of the full screen psychedelically colored app launcher during my Office™ sessions enough times to make me RAGE.