Maybe my opinion is unpopular, but for the life of me, I can’t quite understand all the hate toward Windows 8. Yes, the new start screen is not all that great. But the way I use a computer may be out of the ordinary compared to most “home” based users.
The first thing users need to keep in mind is that outside of the new start screen, Windows 8 is not all that new. The jump from the archaic Windows XP to Vista was large for a reason: XP is based on the obsolete Windows NT 4.x series, whereas Vista is actually Windows NT 5.0 (although the NT designation has been dropped). Windows 7 is in reality Windows 5.1, and Windows 8 actually 5.2. I still don’t understand why they numbered the OS as confusingly as this, but at least it is not as senseless as naming it after…cats. Cats? Seriously? No wonder a certain OS is not taken seriously in the corporate world. Anyway…
I upgraded (yes, upgraded) to Windows 8 for the improvements to the core OS. And there are many. Numerous changes to features such as the File Explorer have made the OS far easier to use. New devices are also easy to add: my new-ish Canon multifunction network printer/scanner pretty much installed itself. And VueScan, once installed, automatically discovered and supported the Canon’s scanner. There are too many other enhancements to explore them all fully here and beside that, they are well documented on the Internet anyway.
But what about that start screen? It does work nicely on a touchscreen. Even the standard Windows desktop responds nicely to touch–double-tap an icon to open a file or program. Drag things around. It all works nicely with touch.
That’s the thing: for those who use their computer as a computer and not a touch interface, we spend 99.9% of our time on the desktop anyway. That’s right! In my day to day computing, I’m at the desktop. It looks almost the same as it did in Windows 7 (albeit with a few styling changes and enhancements). Plus, there are ways around the whole start menu fiasco.
In my case, I downloaded Start8 from Stardock as a trial, and liked it enough to keep it. The whiners out there will complain about spending $4.99 on a little utility for Windows. If you can’t afford $4.99, you shouldn’t even own a computer; ditch that unhealthy overpriced “designer” coffee for a day instead. With Start8, I log in and go right to the desktop if I want to. All of my applications are back in a start menu where I want them. I actually do not use the start menu much anyway: Quick Launch is still in Windows, and I have about 50 icons in a second row in my taskbar as a result, as I’ve always had them since the days of XP. I have never liked pinning anything to the taskbar (it eats up too much space), so Quick Launch is a far better and more compact alternative for me. Aside from a custom styled start menu button I created, anyone can log in to this computer and get a standard Windows experience right off the bat.
Do I use the new Modern start screen? Yes. I switch over to that mode for a diversion. I’ll read the news in nice big print, using the news app. I’ll take in a few games of Taptiles or Wordament. I’ll check out a few more things. Once I’m done, one tap of the mouse takes me right back to my work-cluttered Windows desktop.
Windows 8 has too many good enhancements to just write off completely. And with utilities such as Start8 on hand, that familiar Windows experience is still there. To the complainers: your whining has gotten old, and most of us are tired of hearing about it. Seriously.