Oh my God, add a start menu!

After playing a bit with Windows 8, the start button behavior is horrible.

This is a joke, right? I just can't imagine a secretary in a law firm being fine doing office work that way. Want to open up Excel? Sure:

1. Press start

2. scroll around in Metro and witness the eye candy

3. Forget in the meanwhile what you wanted to do in the first place

4. Getting yelled at by the boss, so you remember again and finally find Office

5. Get a headache from all the Desktop/Metro switch effects

6. Run to the toilet to puke

7. Work done

Oh, and please, please, never ditch the desktop. Something simple like opening up IE and copy and paste some text into multiple notepad windows is a gargantuan task in Metro, if possible at all.

Or you could just pin Excel to the task bar. But I think it should take a little more effort to jump into Metro Land; it just seems too inadvertant in the current release.

-Josh

@wastingtimewithforums: I wouldn't put it in quite the same terms as you did, but I agree. Having to use a full-screen window to launch apps, and constant zigzagging mouse motions to get at stuff because the UI is "touch-first", is just really jarring.

while not as dramatic as you, I do want to keep the old Windows Menu while in desktop mode. And yeah, joggling between desktop and metro is quite irritating. I think once people gone to desktop, the window button should stay as old version because that's usually when people wants to stay in desktop.

Currently the Metro feels like forcing me to use touch screen when I don't have one.

Currently the Metro feels like forcing me to use touch screen when I don't have one.

Even if you would have one - imagine the typical situation of a office worker.... now add a touchscreen to it:

10 years later:

Scary. Being forced to use a touchscreen in that position for a prolonged time is akin to torture. You better save up for your arthritis meds later.

Isn't that positon like against EVERY ergonomics recommendation in existence?
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=22781

Improper height and angle of the keyboard, mouse, or working surface can cause employees to bend their wrists or lift their arms for extended periods.

Possible Solutions:

Adjust the keyboard and/or chair height so the employee's elbows can hang comfortably at the side of  the body, the shoulders are relaxed and the wrist is not bent up or down or to either side during keyboard use

This is awesome, check this out.

http://livesino.net/archives/3674.live

I am happy with this hack too. Keyboard Win Button is still going to Metro, but, the on screen button is OK now. YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Although it seems to break Metro internally. The tiles are smaller, but, when I press the button, the hit is totally off, like two tiles off. Crazy.

[update]

after restart, metro is gone though. Arggggg...... even the new task manager is gone. Up button is still in explore. For some reason, I like the old Win7 explore better than ribbon. I can "Play All" so easily with Win7, Win8 requires brain power.

@magicalclick: Thank God!

I bet they always intended to allow re-enabling of the old start menu, but they probably wanted to see what kind of reaction they'd get if we were forced to use the new one.

@wastingtimewithforums: occasionally hitting something in the start screen doesn't really qualify as "prolonged use" though ...

21 minutes ago,contextfree` wrote

@wastingtimewithforums: occasionally hitting something in the start screen doesn't really qualify as "prolonged use" though ...

Not only that, nobody is forcing you to "pinch" with two fingers from the same hand. You can use both your index fingers. It's not like you're going to be holding an all-in-one computer in one of your hands.

All the full screen Metro stuff looks like it'll make a fine tablet OS, but I'm really not liking the discontinuity as a desktop user.

I hope there's enough outcry about this that they rethink forcing the Metro side on desktop users. Hell, I'd be happy if you could just run Metro style apps in windows along side your traditional apps if you weren't in "tablet mode". In fact I keep looking for the Start screen in the alt+tab ring because it feels more like another app than a menu.

And if the desktop start button ships like it is now, I'll be clinging to Win7 as long as possible then using the above registry hack. The Metro side does nothing for me as a desktop that I'm willing to give up such long standing muscle memory to become accustomed to.

@DCMonkey: Yes, I get the feeling that trying to mix desktop and tablet like this is the wrong way to go. MS believes that folk want to use both at the same time, and I just don't think this is the case.

And Apple appear to be making the same mistake, too.

I've spent a far bit of time using Windows 8 over the last day, on both a touch interface and with a mouse and keyboard.

The Touch interface is wonderful and really flows and works well for me.

However, I do like the mouse/keyboard interface too. It works, feels natural to me. There are a few annoyances that I'm sure will be ironed out before they get to the beta. I'm running this in a VM so I'm not getting the best experience.

It would be nice if you moved your mouse pointer to either edge of the screen, if the start screen then scrolled in that direction, rather than having use the scroll wheel or scrollbar.

Being able to hold the left mouse button down and drag to scroll the start menu would be cool too. (Works well in Civilisation anyway)

Easier access to the shutdown button would be nice too.

Some kind of keyboard shortcut pop-up list would be nice, make it easier to learn my way around with just a keyboard.

Really think this has got promise.

@wastingtimewithforums: I have not installed the beta, but I assume that if you press the Windows botton and start typing the name of the program would bring it right up (as it does in Windows 7), doesn't it?

@giovanni: It is my understanding that you don't have to do anything but start typing to bring up the search.

@giovanni: You press the windows key (jarring switch to full-screen metro UI), start typing (search in full-screen metro UI), and it searches in the last category you used rather than everything like the Win7 start menu.

There's no option to search for everything anymore, and if the last category wasn't apps you have to use the mouse to set it to that. So between that and the clunky full-screen UI, not exactly an improvement.

No one will be using touchscreens in a vertical mount arrangement for any extended period of time.  Google "gorilla arm touchscreen" to see what I mean.  Physically, people cannot use a vertical touchscreen for long periods of time w/o fatigue.  I do think it is important that MS recognizes this reality(and they do by the looks of one of the videos from the build conf).  And not only that, many applications just won't work from a precision standpoint as a fully touch application.  I haven't looked at the Windows 8 preview yet but one thing I would be interested in is:  is there a way to setup Windows 8 so that it boots up in keyboard/mouse mode and is easily navigated with that input method?  This will be the input method for the vast majority of users.  It just has to be in order to use apps like Excel, Photoshop, etc.  Now, perhaps in time a new UI paradigm will be invented where touch input can be precise and get the job done in those type of apps, but that day isn't today.

6 hours ago,cbae wrote

*snip*

Not only that, nobody is forcing you to "pinch" with two fingers from the same hand. You can use both your index fingers. It's not like you're going to be holding an all-in-one computer in one of your hands.

Who cares how many fingers you gonna use. You still need to stretch your arm out as far as you can and smudge your screen like a retarded monkey just to find programs.