Also: what touchscreen gestures? I can only think of the drag-down-to-close one, but even that is still partnered with the ancient Alt+F4.

17 minutes ago, dentaku wrote

The whole fullscreen start menu is touchscreen oriented. Scrolling a mousewheel up and down to scroll left and right is ridiculous. Having to go into the corners and "swipe" away from it is definitely a touchscreen gesture, swiping from the left side to switch apps is made for fingers on a screen that has a screen that's flush with the outer bezel, not a mouse.

I don't find scrolling left and right with the mousewheel that ridiculous, really. It's no more ridiculous than using the mouse wheel to zoom or change volume, in my opinion, but to each his own. In any case that's hardly a matter of forcing touchscreen gestures on mouse users, since it's explicity using a mouse-only feature. If scrolling was achieved by dragging the cursor left and right, I'd agree that that's a case of forcing touch gestures onto mouse users, but that's not what's happening.

I don't really understand what you mean with the other ones. I don't swipe from the left to switch apps. I bring up the app list with the hot corner and then drag and drop the app images. I'm not sure how you're doing it based on your description. Also, I have no idea what this swiping away from corners gesture is supposed to achieve, because nothing happens when I try it.

1 hour ago, Bas wrote

*snip*

I don't find scrolling left and right with the mousewheel that ridiculous, really. It's no more ridiculous than using the mouse wheel to zoom or change volume, in my opinion, but to each his own. In any case that's hardly a matter of forcing touchscreen gestures on mouse users, since it's explicity using a mouse-only feature. If scrolling was achieved by dragging the cursor left and right, I'd agree that that's a case of forcing touch gestures onto mouse users, but that's not what's happening.

I don't really understand what you mean with the other ones. I don't swipe from the left to switch apps. I bring up the app list with the hot corner and then drag and drop the app images. I'm not sure how you're doing it based on your description. Also, I have no idea what this swiping away from corners gesture is supposed to achieve, because nothing happens when I try it.

They're not all regular swipes or what people used to call gestures. It's just reaching all the way into corners then moving down like in the charms bar and the app switcher (or whatever you want to call it) which I know is really just a vertical menu with little icons so I'm fine with that one. Grabbing the top and pulling down is definitely a touchscreen thing and doesn't feel right at all. Being in a fullscreen start menu replacement just feels constraining too.
Getting your mouse into the exact right place in the top right corner with 2 monitors can be very difficult too.

I've seen people swipe from the left to the center to switch open apps before. Doesn't it work with a mouse? I believe did it back when my Win8 install still worked.

None of it is obvious either (even shutdown is hard to find), but like I said, it's fine on a touchscreen device that you're not going to run standard desktop apps on but it's just not right with a mouse and non tablet software.

It's hard to explain but people obviously don't feel right using it and it's not just because it's unfarmiliar. That's why someting like a Taskfore site is good. It will show what a bunch of us feel is most important to fix.

First past the post voting seems like a bad way to refine an OS, but if you don't like the way Windows is going, don't buy it.

If you want to try something truly awful, try Windows 8 on a non-touch Windows 8 laptop.

-Josh

33 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

...

if you don't like the way Windows is going, don't buy it.

At the end of the day, this is the only feedback that MS are going to pay attention to.

For desktops/laptops, the true Win8 sales stats are going to be masked to some extent, as buyers intending to downgrade Win8 purchases will still be scored by MS as Win8 buyers (same as they scored Vista sales for users who actually immediately downgraded to XP) but eventually, if people don't like it, the result will be reduced demand, as hardware will dictate the replacement cycle rather than the O/S, and most modern hardware will last longer than an O/S version cycle.

This is, of course, exactly the same as the last three versions of Windows, so it shouldn't be a revelation.  The only difference is that it looks different.

Pin anything you use all the time on the task bar, and remove them from Start.
Remove other items you don't need to see every day. 
All apps are always available through keyboard search and via the All Apps option.

Oh, and if you want to add more items vertically, go to Start -> Settings -> Tiles -> Show more tiles.

2 days ago, JoshRoss wrote

If you want to try something truly awful, try Windows 8 on a non-touch Windows 8 laptop.

One of the machines I run Windows 8 on is a regular non-touch laptop. I don't have any problems with it.

The first post should be how to turn off your computer since that's my bro's first question, and yes, he has really high degree, I just don't want to be specific about it to avoid unnecessary generalization about him, his school, and the industry.

11 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

@dentaku:

The first post should be how to turn off your computer since that's my bro's first question, and yes, he has really high degree, I just don't want to be specific about it to avoid unnecessary generalization about him, his school, and the industry.

When you port a console game to PC it just feels wrong because many games play much better with a mouse and keyboard and the resolution is often higher so the console games are often considered dumbed down. I don't find Win8 to be terribly dumbed down but sometimes it does have that feel to it.
I believe one time a company decided to allow console and PC users to play online together but they had to cripple the PC players because their setup was so much more accurate that they would always win.
Forcing actions and UI designed for touchscreens on people who are using mice, keyboards and multiple monitors just feels like those console ports that don't give us mouse/keyboard users the options that make our hardware more efficient and accurate.

Like I've said before, I'll be happy to use the Modern UI on a Surface Pro or something similar  when I buy one and I'm not complaining about the performance or stability of Win8, just the UX and that's why it would be good to have a Win8 Taskforce website.
It's not for complaining about how bad the OS is (because it's not), it's about helping Microsoft fix the usability issues/weirdness the majority of us wish they could improve. 

12 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

@dentaku:

The first post should be how to turn off your computer since that's my bro's first question, and yes, he has really high degree, I just don't want to be specific about it to avoid unnecessary generalization about him, his school, and the industry.

The bizzare thing is that the most obvious way which works - pressing the power button - has been beaten out of us over 20 years of computing. Remember this?

(Just don't hold the power button down or the processor will get shut off and you'll lose your data and you might corrupt the files in your filesystem).

Obviously, I get it done, it's just more frustrating.  That's me, I understand others like it.  What Microsoft should have done was make everyone happy and provide some options in setup.  Had they done that, they could have kept the good press they were getting going. 

Back to your question, would a sight like that be useful?  Sure, but only if it was popular enough to garner someone from Microsoft (who can make decisions) to take it seriously.  My feel is that Microsoft will only react when they don't see the adoption rates they want (like, if most enterprises don't adopt it, which mine isn't and won't with the exception of a few tablets that will make their way in).

21 minutes ago, jinx101 wrote

*snip*

I can do everything I need to but it seems to take a few more clicks 

This is also my biggest complaint. Even trying to stay on the desktop and avoid the "Windows 8 Store App" environment is frustrating.

"Windows 8 - More clicks in every box!": I think they should make a mouse version of their Surface commercial but instead of attaching the keyboard with that satisfying click they should show users furiously clicking the mouse in frustration along with "scroll...scroll...scroll your boat gently down the stream..."

I love those devs too that forget to add mouse wheel support to their Windows 8 Store Apps. You know the victims of the Sinofsky-ism "Write for touch and get the mouse & keyboard for free".