Windows 8 First Impressions

6 June 2012

I have had Windows 8 on my computer for four days now. I am still trying to understand the advantages of making such enormous changes to the user interface. The stated reason is so the computing experience will be very similar between mobile devices and the desktop. This sound good but as implemented it makes no sense to me. If I want to get from point A to B I can use my car or my bicycle. They both get me to where I want to go. Trying to make them operate the same way would be ridiculous nonsense. I see no advantage to replacing my steering wheel with handle bars. That is how I feel about trying to make my office computer act like my smart phone.

Microsoft products have never been as user friendly as Apple products. In Windows 8 all the ways you finally learned to access various functions of the software have been replaced with new ways, no more intuitive than they were initially. This is extremely frustrating and completely unnecessary. When I first started using Windows 8 the first thing that came to my mind was: “This is going to make Vista appear a raging success with enterprise by comparison.” I’m surprised that the professional reviewers have not found this to be so. When I finally found that the Start key on my keyboard was really the Home button on a smart phone it did get a little easier to navigate. But still the impression one gets is like going through the notoriously aggravating phone tree, (if you want to use your phone press one, if you’re a frequent caller press two, if you  wish to continue press three, etc.)

7 June 2012

I like to turn off my computer at night. There must be a way to do this much easier than I have found. If one leaves the default “Hibernate” function on then it is annoying to wait for the computer to wake up so that it can be Shutdown. Holding the on button will shut down the computer but is it a safe way?

12 June 2012

One continuing frustration is the lack of a back button. If one wishes to go to the previous screen one must hit the Windows Key to the start menu and then continue to where one was. This entails several key strokes. Why not just a back button? Did I miss something? I suspect the Microsoft will soften the impact of the user interface before the final release of Windows 8. Or at least I fervently hope they do.

Finally, there are several programs that won’t load on Windows 8. They may work if I could get them to load but the error message comes up saying it is not compatible with this operating system when I try to load them.