Interesting. I avoided windows 8 like the plague and now I think I know why. That start screen just puts me off something fierce

I guess it would apply to those that disliked it. I had no problems with it, I just thought it was in the way compared to the previous start menu. Removed all clutter. Full previous comment for posterity: I guess it would apply to those that disliked it. I had no problems with it, I just thought it was in the way compared to the previous start menu. Sucks that I can barely remember that time, it would be nice to remember how I used it before I moved to Windows 8.1. I only have a lot of screenshots since Windows 10 or if it was 8, when you could make screenshots and have them saved automatically if you also held in the Windows button, as before that I used paint to save screenshots and I may not have saved any screenshots of metro mode, I generally only saved screenshots for something I would use later, nowadays I save screenshots of all sorts of things that I may never have a use for like if I see an interesting thumbnail on KZfaq or maybe something even more useless like the time being 13:37. I totally forgot this, but I saw an old screenshot when I used something for the desktop where it would say different stuff about the PC like how much space I have on each drive and CPU usage. I believe it starts on n..does it end with meter? Rainmeter? That starts with r, but I think that's the name. As I saw a screenshot with that recently, I no doubt can find it if I try. If you ever have a bunch of files, I use Everything by Voidtools. Doesn't take forever to load maybe a thousand files. I have 19 million files and folders on one drive and I just searched two words and it found all files under probably 500ms, dates and times all ready unlike with Windows. You can index with Windows, but even if it loads data quickly, you still have to click through folders and searching larger parts is still very slow, especially when searching the entire drive for something. I think there's Total Commander that can index too, don't know how it compares as I don't believe I have ever used it.

I’ve been using OpenShell forever.

I'm using a windows 8.1 in my old laptop I didn't even care what's the problem

Yup you are right

It was all because of the developers complaining. But yet they had no problem developing apps for other phones.

out of curiosity, what kind of feedbacks the testers gave that Microsoft didn't listen ?

I think Windows phones were great. Problem was lack of third party support.

Not to mention the fact that once Nadella took over, one of the first thinks he did was axe windows phone. And he did it in the most pathetic way; He just ordered a stop to all development on it, and didn't even announce it. He basically ghosted they users. Its especially irksome considering that Windows Phone had a roughly 10% marketshare at its peak. That is more than viable.

@@Amos_Huclkeberry whilst it is obvious the windows phone store had a miniscule number of apps compared to the other platforms, in my time using windows phone from 2012-2017 i only really had problems finding apps in the last 1-2 years. 90% of the apps on android and ios are just absolute junk no one should ever download, so comparing pure numbers is pointless. but if a major player didnt develop an app for windows phone, a 3rd party generally did, and in most cases, it was a better app than the official one on other platforms. it wasnt until towards the end of windows phone lifecycle that this became a problem. a lot of these 3rd party apps got shut down due to api restrictions (im looking at you google, snapchat) and with no official app available, or a very poorly made feature incomplete abandoned official app, there was no real alternative. i probably would have hung on to windows phone for a little while longer after 2017, as i primarily use my phone for texting, emails and checking the news, all of which i can do on any platform, however i broke the screen on my lumia 950xl and it was time to jump ship to an android.

Gigachad

Luckily Windows 10 got it right when it comes to installation... Either optimize for desktops/laptops or mobile. The way win 8 should've been

Props for fighting to good fight!

@@adventureoflinkmk2 windows 10 also had the "tablet mode", which brings back the start menu, although even with a touch screen laptop, I prefer the normal Window desktop screen

You were right, he was wrong. Had Win8 on a laptop. It was complete dogsh!t for usability. Design tutor clearly just had the aesthetic tastes of a toddler.

no kidding... what server has a touch screen??

@@Jacklsovakia1 What server has a screen anyway? Most server deployments are headless only and you'd remote into them from another machine via ssh or a web interface, making any kind of UI entirely useless in most cases.

My university still uses Server Edition 2012 in study rooms. Brings back Windows 8 memories. I'd have preferred Mint or Ubuntu instead since you can't install any apps without admin access anyway.

that ballmer era copium, overcorrecting his iPhone comments by making everything more phone like.

The Windows Server team was forced to take the entire Windows 8 codebase for Windows Server 2012, which was unfortunate. From what I can rememeber they didn't actually want it but higher-ups at Microsoft kinda forced it upon them and as a result Server 2012 came out with a Start screen. That being said, 2012 and 2012 R2 were definetely an improvement over 2008 R2 and earlier versions as they included the new ReFS file system, Storage Spaces, a brand new Server Manager, the begining of Azure AD hybrid cloud infastrucutres and many other things that made it pretty nice once you got past the Start screen.

after using windows 11 for a good 6 months before returning to windows 10. i still sometimes right click the start button to get to the task manager rather than just right clicking anywhere on the task bar. i wonder if they have fixed that in windows 11 yet.

@@iris4547 Just use Ctrl+Shift+Esc And yes, it has been fixed in 11.

@@BakrAli10 "Just use Ctrl+Shift+Esc" generally speaking i do. but sometimes when my keyboard is stowed, the mouse is the only option.

I know one single, solitary person in my entire field of acquaintances who agrees with you. They loved it. I think it's fair to say that Metro was really a hate it or love it GUI and very few of us saw it's charms as you and my friend do. Frankly, I multi-task and not being able to do so without jumping through hoops drove me absolutely crazy. As to the 'hot corners' and Charms Bar...a lot of the resistance came about because they were absolutely, totally NON-INTUITIVE. Gosh, all these years later and I'm still angry. Sorry. You're one of the very, very few who liked that thing. Most of us hated it with a passion.

No they weren't. You never knew whether they'd come up or not- and I'd been using Windows regularly since 3.0.

Lets face it 10 did the right thing

No one is ready, they will just shove it down our throats as usual, the rascals..

ExplorerPatcher and Classic Start FTW!!!!!!!!!

I made the switch the last week of December. I like how snappy it is (Though that could be because I backed up and clean installed instead of upgraded, the way LTT suggested when Win 11 came out). Android apps are fun, though I wish I could actually get a useful store on it... Amazon doesn't count... hell... the Galaxy store would have been a better partnership Microsoft, come on. I basically only used the Windows 10 start menu like the Windows 11 start menu is now, or how the Windows 7 start menu worked, mostly just the app list, typing to search, and a couple of pins, so the change to the new one didn't change much for me. Just think having it in the middle is a stupid default, stop trying to be Apple, Microsoft.

Stardock Start11 can get back the 8 Metro feel 👋 The menu panel itself can be wallpapered, individual tiles can be given custom colors and icons, etc etc! And made fullscreen if you want as well. And it _doesn't_ require dirty hackish methods to use it like that one win10 tile themer program that unsafely breaks the original start menu by cannibalizing system files. Start11 has proper settings menus and doesn't horribly mess up system files

I use Windows 10 taskbar. Upgrade to Windows 10 for Android apps, better context menus and tabs in Windows explorer. Plus it's snappier. (Maybe it's the animations though but it feels so anyway)

Right there with you! If they'd kept going with their platform I'd have stuck with it. I do like my Pixel 5 with arrow launcher now but still miss my Lumia. -- The windows 8 start screen UI never really bothered me, but I don't miss it on desktop (That said I don't really use the start menu anyway, I just hit the windows key, type some characters for what I want and hit enter, so it doesn't really matter how it looks).

And they had Android App support lined up! It was ON THE WAY. I bailed a while ago already, but I did use it for a long time. Lumia 640. The OS was not as bloated and messed up like Android, and honestly, came closer to iOS in terms of stability and resource usage. Some of the UI decisions like the tabs being text were a bit awkward, but those would have been rectified by now anyway.

Agreed, I still use SquareHome as my launcher of choice on my S22 to this day.

@@KyleDavis328 Thanks for that tip

@@sinni800 Before my 950XL, I had a 640XL, and Gosh was that phone so good, especially for the price. And indestructible! Going from my 950XL to a Pixel 6a today, I'm so bothered by how many things I had to left behind too (I had better Gorilla Glass, better camera, better AMOLED screen, headphone jack, etc etc...) and I still had to shell 250€ (in heavy sale) for it.

who even needs a start button. sure, theres the old people, and stubborn people that are set in their ways. but im pretty sure the vast majority of keyboards have at least 1 windows key on them and have so for the past 15+ years.

@@iris4547 I dont use, and shouldnt have to use, keyboard until I really have to type something. This is UI not CLI

@@RazielXT no its not CLI, but id much rather press the windows key (at any time, even whilst right in the middle of typing this sentence in my web browser) and type "calc" or "notep" followed by enter and have the intended program on screen in less than a second, than root around to find my mouse cursor, move it to the start menu, and either scroll or press one of the alphabet buttons to eventually find the program i want after 5+ seconds instead. maybe you could do with a little command line in your life. (also i was being generous. for calculator i can type just "ca". so 4 key strokes including the windows key and enter. for notepad only "n" is required. so 3 key strokes. not sure if this is standard or windows has learned my usage patterns, so your mileage may vary).

@@iris4547 But the point is, I have common calc and notepad already pinned. Ofc if I need something less used then typing is in order

@@iris4547 it's like saying why need a taskbar if alt+tab exists. I'm also certain the actual button wasn't the issue here but the fact that the menu that the button brought up is also gone in win8.

Man I loved 8.1. I really didn't want to move to 10 when it came out.

I've found that windows has become good enough at searching for applications I don't need to put anything on the start menu, I just hit windows key and type the name of what I want and can find it every time.

Report "sidda gaming" for spam and dont click that shit, keeps posting these on LTT videos

I wasn't using a touch screen on my main PC at the time and the lack of one was a horrendous sore point of Metro. It was one of the most stupid, insulting, arrogant impositions of 'my way or the highway' upon PC users, ever. Certainly, it ended Windows for me completely. I was already more than halfway to using Linux for my daily tasks and Windows 8 did it for me. Never looked back. I do help my grandkids with their Windows 11 hiccups (which are relatively rare), so try to keep up with that system, but Windows 8 was it. As, come to think of it, was Unity under Ubuntu. Same stupid attempt to force people used to customizing things to fit their needs to comply with some idiot child's idea of how one 'had to' properly use their own PC.

Absolutely. I was the only person I knew with a windows phone and I had about three of them in the end. I loved them, it made sense, it worked, it felt different in a really nice way and even now I miss it. They were fantastic phones, except for the App Store being pants or third party attempts.

Because Microsoft was always better at technology than at marketing ... yeah, right.

I've had similar issues with Store apps. It's frustrating how they feel they have to "kid-proof" everything now.

I _partly_ agree with you. Part of the reason Windows is such a mess, part of the reason we are in the legacy support nightmare we're in now, is Windows has always been _too_ _lenient_ with how apps work. For the longest time it's been left completely up to the application to implement installing, finding and loading its own program files. Tens of thousands of apps have specific paths in C: baked into them because that's just how it's always been done. Apps *must* *have* complete and unrestricted access to C: to do this, because they're expected to go digging through C: to even function. It's impossible for Windows to sandbox them properly, it's impossible for Windows to move stuff in C: with new versions (refactoring is important). And since apps have to "do it all themselves", they even inconsistently support different things. It's up to the app to offer per-user installations, or alterate directory installation, or silent installations for networks etc. Why? Why on earth are we making every app developer implement all this stuff themselves. That just leads to most apps _not_ supporting all these little things because the devs don't think of them, don't care, or don't have time. With the Store, *Windows* takes care of installation and it nicely and neatly packages up every app's data into wherever IT says it'll do it, offering the chance for great installation options to potentially come about someday. And *Windows* tells the app exactly where to find its files, even going as far as to force each app to live its in own _sandboxed_ _folder_ for security, which I think is what the permissions thing is. This. Is. Excellent. If Windows was just like this from the beginning we'd be in so much more of a better place. If _Windows_ took care of installation and file management for apps itself, every app would always support the hundreds of installation customizations, or Windows could _easily_ impose restrictions upon apps like "No access to the C: drive". A great example of the latter is an issue that persists with Windows today, on networks where policies are supposed to stop users from seeing C:, apps can, and many often do, _accidentally_ expose what's on the C: to the user in some built-in file browser, when policies are supposed to stop that. That happens because Windows cannot say to the app "You have no access to C:", else everything would break. With the Store implementation, Windows is free to change stuff and all it has to do is change its own installation routines and all apps, old and new, will support it, apps are given a folder, and can only go to their folder etc. etc. But unfortunately, they're stuck with "too little too late" with the way Store has been done because they were too lenient with the applications all along. That being said, the implementation, as it is, is (as always) not ideal, I agree with you there, I don't know why it goes to different places but if I had to guess it's probably because installation are on a per-user basis, which I think is pretty reasonable. Or it's yet again to do with that sandboxing. Or they did it because... It just makes sense given how different the architecture between the apps are. It's a pretty moot point where exactly the apps go anyway, you can find out whenever you really need to access their data

@@Bandrik I don't think it's about "kid-proof"ing stuff, see my other reply

@@Alex-ABPerson an actually good explanation for it all, I like it. Much appreciated. :)

In fact they are really similar to the last update of the Xbox 360 dashboard.

xbox one actually ran windows 8 at release and now 10

Yes because we all saw the Windows 8 thumbnail

iirc, windows boot manager could also boot linux, i had windows 7 and fedora running on windows boot manager. changed it from grub because i was using windows more

Yup I've heard the same arguments since Windows 3.1.

The problem with 8 was that it forced a phone / tablet interface on desktop / laptop, which was a huge drawback for usability. It doesn't have anything to do with skill level or change in general. Thats why when they fixed the interface in 8.1 it was one of the best OS. Windows 11 has the same problem but cranked up to 11 (badum tss), under the hood it's good, but the usability of the interface is atrocious. 8+ clicks and mouse wheel to get to the volume mixer in win 11, when in 10 it is only 2 clicks isn't exactly a step forward.

@@Longgshot on windows 11 opening the sound mixer is literally 3 klicks 1st: leftklick on speaker symbol 2nd: klick on sound options 3rd: klick on mixer How to open in 0.5 seconds: typing Mixer (mostly only Mi is enough) into your start menu and hitting enter directly brings you there

Start key -> first few letters is how I open damn near any program. Works how I'd want it to like 99% of the time.

I think big changes to the operating system's user interface out to have some kind of point. With Windows 8, that was only true for people who used it on touch screen devices. For everyone else, it was pointless, and yet Microsoft tried to force it on everyone else. If you were not on a touch screen device, suddenly everything you knew about operating a computer became obsolete. Most people see no point in re-inventing the wheel. It seemed like a trendy cash grab by Microsoft.

Don’t upgrade yet, i recently did and its so buggy still.

Consider Linux.

@@iplyrunescape305 the linux experience is far worse for normal people. i want to be able to run program,exe rather than having to do anything with the command line. different tools for different people

@@jordanwardle11 it's not worse wym? Why do you say it's worse? Mint you can do a lot without opening the command line.

@@iplyrunescape305 remember , freedom of choice , like other linux distro

Windows 11 gives a 3 second boot time........... that might be due to upgraded hardware though (never mind)

@sidda Gaming dont click the link

Windows 10 had two start menus, they killed it silently years ago when they realized no one used the tablet one.

@@KyleDavis328 Is it tablet mode? Because I can enable tablet mode in settings currently and I'm on a recent Windows 10 version.

@@_Tzebra_ That's hybrid boot. It keeps everything in memory. Do an actual system restart to see real boot time.

Too little, too late. By the time 8.1 rolled around, I was already done, done, done with Windows, forever.

Powertoys search in windows 10/11 is the less crappy version of it.

@@TheHammerGuy94 well yes and no, it definitely gives you what you want with really high accuracy, but it gives you only a few options to choose from. Thats the magic about w8, it showed you everything

What so you mean? I enjoy not finding shit when searching on win10 and 11. Makes finding things feel like an adventure

@@kruger7796 no

You could just customise notifications to your liking, like only apps you often use or turn all off. You could make the first page have apps you use often. I have no idea why these are complaints you have with Android and iOS, you're lying when it can easily be found out. The points apply to Android, I can't be arsed to check if you can do both of them on iOS or at least iOS 5 or whatever I have on the iPhone 5S.

but weather is on taskbar

There is on the Widgets, but hope they improve it.

No. And f Windows 11.

You can get Arrow launcher that has the WP8 look.

@@PatalJunior Dang it, a launcher! Why didn't i think of that?! But arrow launcher just takes me to the Microsoft launcher which makes android just look like a mesh up of android and w10, but launcher 10 is a lot like the real deal.

@@PatalJunior No you can't. I have arrow. No matter what setting I use, I can't get it to look like Windows phone.

@@saulgoodman2018 Update: I've read through the Privacy stuff of launcher 10 and it's concerning to say the least. I'd rather recommend going with "square home" for now. Also on my phone it feels faster than even the vanilla UI - Never had that before with a launcher.

You summed it up. For touchscreen devices, it had some good features. For those of us who, for whatever reason, we not using touchscreen devices, it was a total, complete, absolute hate-fest.

I agree with this: when Win8 first came out, I didn't have a touchscreen device and disliked it. But relatively shortly into its life cycle I got a touchscreen laptop and the OS felt very intuitive. More thought needed to be given to the non-touchscreen desktop experience, but on the whole I do think there was a lot of potential there.

I found Windows Phone to be incredibly intuitive to use as well as highly customisable; it made Android seem clunky with random and illogical design choices (not true now, though.) I had two Windows phones over a 5 year period and did not have any issues with either of them. Although I have an Android device now and the OS is much more useable with way more apps, I still do miss the Windows Phone interface.

@@simonlb24 Android from that era was awful. It's obviously gotten better since the Lollipop-and-earlier days, the best right now even, But I do miss my Windows Phone... Still use SquareHome as my launcher on my S22 and have since I switched to Android. Hacked together live-tiles may not be as good as the real thing, but at this point it works for me.

Because it didn’t shut down completely. Check the UP time in task manager.

by the time 8.1 came out the damage was already done.

@@gamepad3173 no? they still had 2 years unlike vista

Actually having a phone that would last 2 days with a single charge was amazing. I had everything on one page. Didn't have to hop around to find things. A camera that was well ahead of it's time but they couldn't compete with the lowly iphone and Android with very little updates that made them better unless you waited 4 years. Still windows phones would be better to this day if they would have kept going. I'm talking about the phones so no one is confused. Windows phones were superior at its peak.

@@terenceclapper i agree i absolutly loved my htc m8, sure it sucked having to hack my system to get roms and dfx working but thats no different then rooting a droid type shit... I had that phone for 5 years until it got ruined by getting caught in a water spouts path while kayaking. Ui never got slow ,had a great camera even by todays standards. And the stereo front firing speakers where boss for podcasts at work.

@@terenceclapper and the lack of apps and developer support makes Windows phone die faster For example, Instagram app on iOS and Android has been improved much with frequent feature updates every few months, when at the same time, Instagram app on Windows Phone forever stuck in "Beta" without any updates (it did move out of Beta in Windows Phone 10, but didn't last long before it got completely shut down and removed from WP)

@@sihamhamda47 It only has to run, even new features aren't necessary. It just had a lack of apps, but maybe they could've made something to emulate Android apps.

@@Herkan97 Yeah, if they could maintain and continue to develop Windows Phone, maybe it could run Android apps natively like Windows Android Subsystem in Windows 11 The last hope for Windows in mobile devices nowadays is "Windows on ARM", which are now still continuing to develop for getting better app support in the future (even it can run on some specific Android phones)

It was on the Charm by pointing your mouse or swiping to the right side, click Settings. Windows 8.1 Update 2 added a Power button on the Start Screen.

Windows 8.1 but classic shell installed

@@sinni800 Also is a valid option, but I never liked versions of shell before it.

still nothing can replace the good old Control Panel

I've never understood all the hate for Windows 8. After you get past the tiles it's actually a great OS. Everyone just seems to get stuck on the tiles.

developers didn't want to have anything to do with Microsoft, they forced then to rework all the apps from window mobile to windows phone 7 with their silverlight shenanigans, and then again from windows phone 8 to windows 10 mobile with the UWP

Experimenting with the desktop metaphor is great -- on your own machine. Forcing it on to someone else willy-nilly is simply arrogance. Many people want to run programs and do things, not cope with some devs neon eye candy.

I'm the exact opposite. I never use the live tiles ever. I have desktop icons I use all the time. Also, I just checked, I have 1 live tile in my Windows 10 Start Menu and it's the weather, which I used to have as a Widget in Vista and 7. Also my desktop isn't all that cluttered, but that's because I spend the time to organize my desktop and make sure to store most of my stuff in directories on my secondary drives.

Well, I gave it a fair chance and I did use it and I hated it from start to finish.

So much preinstalled garbage that you can't remove or comes back when you remove it (Microsoft explorer, xbox)

Of note, this would allow windows to look the same on every device, withoutr making it painful to use on any device

I'm with you. I hated it at first bit once I got used to it, it was the most stable and least annoying windows version I have ever used with the possible exception of XP.

Because 8.1 Metro UX was weird for traditional desktop and laptop that are not touchscreen.

WinAero Tweaker can disable toasts and return notifications back to being connected to systray icons. It is one of the first things I do when I install 10 LTSC. I totally despise toasts, they are so intrusive & distracting.

They are still really slow, if you don't think they are you've probably upgraded to a SSD since then.

Same. I'm keeping W10 as long as I can.

64-bit Vista was fine, as long as it had enough RAM and you had good drivers for your peripherals.

Windows 7 looks seriously outdated now.

@@killerb255 Aye, 8GB of DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 from G/Skill. No Virtual Memory page file and never had an OOM error. I even reskinned my Windows 7 to look like Vista Aero again for a while. SPEAKING OF SKINS!!! Can't skin Windows 10 easily! Skinpacks are broken AF on W10. SMH...

@@DogsBAwesome Matter of opinion, but frankly I prefer the rounded corners and glass transparency effects. But even if you don't like that, W7 could easily be skinned to look like the clinical tile and glyph aesthetics of W10.

Windows Me, yes. But Windows Vista was exactly the same as 7, the only difference being that 7 had a less resource intensive way of drawing windows, and 7 was very well received and praised. And yea, 8 under the hood was really good, which is why 8.1 was so good, because they got rind of all the obligatory phone / tablet interface, and the foundation was solid.

And not all apps installed will create a shortcut icon in the Desktop. And the touch UX and full-screen app looks weird for non-touch PCs.