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if these app developers support touch in windows 8, then i'd rather have access to all the legacy desktop software that a windows tablet brings.

A legacy Intel tablet - which won't be getting anywhere near the battery life and thinness of ARM tablets for the next couple of years.

WOA gives you - well, *might* give you - the same apps on iOS...and, Office.  And you get Metro!

Uh...yeah.  2012 is all Apple again in the tablet market.

Even hitting Win+E then Ctrl+E isn't a full substitute however, as with a new Explorer window on most systems defaults to My Computer. 

So when you enter text into that search field, it starts to search all your drives, which of course are not indexed.  Several minutes later, you get your results.

So really, it's more like:

1) Launch Explorer.

2) Click on your Libraries to avoid thrashing your disk looking for files on non-indexed drives (really btw, why the hell is that STILL so bloody slow?)

3) Then highlight the search window, and start typing.

As opposed to Win7: Win+F, start typing.  Or of course..Win key, start typing in the Start Menu.  And hey, you can actually manipulate the results.

I'll accept that Metro can scale to be a usable desktop UI when I see the first example of it.

Actually, we have - Zune.

Which is replaced in Win8 by the full-screen media player.

Jesus.

@Richard.Hein:

...and you could use semantic zoom in that instance as well.  Hold down cntrl and move the mouse button forward a few times to drill down into the category or group of results, with the furthermost level being a live preview of the file's content.  That to me would be a decent start menu replacement, but I would still want the option for it to run in a window as not being allowed to do so just destroys drag and drop as a means of data transfer.

10 minutes ago, Simo wrote

@Richard.Hein: Hmm close, but what I really want is a keyboard shortcut to get this

This is another thing that infuriates me about the Start Screen's search results - they're using your full screen, but someone the tiny Start Menu is able to auto-group your results automatically?

Not to mention in the screenshot above you can:

- Drag and drop results into another window (adding an attachment you're looking for is the perfect example of this),

- Right-click to expose far more functionality, same as any explorer window (Send that result hit to an app, copy it for later, delete it, open the file location).

With the Start Screen search?

- Manually have to select category search.

- No ability to sort results when you have a lot of hits in a category.

- Hovering over an icon does not give a live preview (save for photo's), just an enlarged icon with the file size. Weee.

- No drag and drop, no right-click functionality save for opening the file location, which you'll need to do if you want to do someone other than "launch" your search results.

Really, wtf.

3 hours ago, Richard.Hein wrote

*snip*

Right-Click in the bottom right hand corner, and you get this:

 

If I had of known about this from the get-go, I wouldn't have had such a negative reaction.  However, they simply must add Sleep/Restart/Shutdown and a few other things to it.

 

I still have a strong negative reaction to that, as it highlights just how much MS is struggling to make this workable.  That is clearly a desperate attempt to bring back missing functionality from the now non-existent Start Menu by basically creating a very crippled version of it - that you launch by moving your mouse pointed into the lower-left corner, waiting for the start screen pop-up, then right-clicking it to get this pop-up, then left-clicking one of the options.

I mean really - play that sequence of steps back in your head a few times.  Someone actually designed this.

Yes! PDF viewing built in!  Finally!

Oh...it's a Metro app, and thus completely useless.  Same with Photo's and Mail.  So those are replacing the Windows Live Suite?  Full-screen apps only?  Seriously, on a 24" display?

Really, the more I use it, the worse my impression gets.  There's so little focus and design consistency in this OS, which is particularly frustrating because MS gave the impression with Win7 that they would be paying more attention to that are.  So much of the OS feels unfinished and un-tweaked as all the thought has gone into WinRT and the new Start Screen (with little though in how it melds with the desktop).

So far, most unimpressive OS ever (well, it boots fast) from MS, and one of their most critical times.

This will not end well.  Jesus, take a look at the Windows blogs comments thread - it's just a slaughter.

Overall impression?

Absolute disaster on desktop and laptop.  Shockingly ugly, no innovation done for mouse and keyboard users, almost zero discoverability, workflow screwed to hell, Metro apps laughably simplistic with obnoxious large DPI.  Mail in particular is ridiculous on a 24" screen - does this mean that there will be no desktop Live Essentials/Mail for Win8, and MS wants us to use this?!

Well, it boots fast.

The Building Windows 8 blog responses are painful to watch.  Massive, massive consensus on the "WTF MS?!" side.

The one with added colour just looks fantastic:

That's the closest fit to true Metro styling I believe.  The few coloured icons may deviate from that a bit, but if Metro mandates that all icons are monochrome then that's a design flaw IMO (I don't believe it does).  This is especially true for tiny icons.

I'm less concerned with Metro as a principle design concept for the desktop the more I see modern examples, what I am concerned about is MS's past approach to the little details in its interfaces - history has shown that's lacking.  Metro *really* needs you to pay attention to these small details as it can have a massive impact on the final presentation as the above image shows.  Just a lighter shade of gray, better scroll bars and some slight font changes results in something that really looks professionally done.

It's almost there, but I hope MS considers these tweaks to the GUI for the final release.  The image above is to my eyes, about as close to perfect as you could expect for a Metro "inspired" GUI.

It's too monochrome yes, but this, along with Office 15 screenshots, actually gives me hope that the desktop in Win8 will go through some more "Metro-ification" to not be so disparate visually from Metro stylings.

The argument against bring some Metro aesthetic sense to the desktop is that third-party apps would look out of place.  If MS keeps the desktop as it is Win8 preview however, then apps like Office 15 and VS will look equally out of place.

Don't like ALL CAPS headings though.