Windows 8 - Things you love and things you hate

Posted by RandomName on March 3, 2012 04:00 am 12

After one day with the W8 beta, I haven't been able to form a concrete opinion on it. There's so much and so much bad, I thought it would be good to try and list out which is which.

BAD - Metro applications only ever run on one screen, fullscreen. Dual monitors, large monitors, widescreen, whatever - Theres no flexibility. It takes up the whole screen, and typically just means elements are giant sized on larger screens. Makes multi tasking a pain too. Got 2 monitors, and want to run (metro) Mail on one and a video on the other? Too bad, not allowed.

GOOD - The ribbon interface in Explorer. I know, who would have guessed that? But it just works so well! Its minimized by default so instead of acting like a big screen sucker, it ends up being a better designed, easier to use menu system

BAD - The bizarre mix of Metro applications and Desktop applications. So the taskbar shows desktop applications, if I use alt-tab it shows desktop and Metro apps, if I use win-tab it shows Metro applications only. Metro and desktop applications launch from the start menu, but you don't know which are which (except for the icons?). I still don't know how to start Metro internet explorer.

GOOD - The copying files interface in the desktop mode! It finally works properly! Simple and well designed.

BAD - The fiddliness of "hot corners" on a dual monitor setup. If my main monitor is on the right (which it is, for me), then trying to bring up the multi-tasking or start menu with the mouse is a pain. If its on the left, bringing up the .... settings (?) sidebar thing is difficult. The sidebar thing seems somewhat poorly designed as well. It seems to be only place where you power down the PC and its totally hidden away! I had to actually look up on the internet how to turn off my PC via Windows. FYI, to turn off your PC, move your mouse to the top right of your main monitor, drag it down until a black area appears, then click settings, then click power.

GOOD - The metro start menu is a great notification home base. With one keypress I can see mail notifications, messaging notifications, calendar updates, as well as as whatever users can think of for live tiles. Its a bit crap as a launcher, but as a notification centre its great.

BAD - Metro seems to hate vertical scrolling. Tried to browse through applications in the Microsoft app store, but the fact that everything are gigantic tiles and you only scroll sideways just annoyed me so much I couldn't use it.

GOOD - Skydrive is nicely integrated into the Metro interface. Facebook too - shows potential that this can be extended and integrated.

BAD - Skydrive integration seems non-existent in the desktop mode? Could be wrong here, but I don't see anyway to open up a Skydrive folder.

More to come as I keep using it...