Windows 8 is by far the dumbest OS I've ever used

I don't know what possessed me to buy the blasted thing. I've only had it for 3 hours, but I can vehemently proclaim that Windows 8 sucks.

It takes my 20 years of Windows knowledge and flushes it down the toilet. For fucks sake, I had to use Google to figure out how to Restart my damn PC because I just couldn't figure out how to do it on my own! It's absolutely insane.

Then I keep getting stuck in these Start Screen/Windows Store loops where I can't figure out how to exit back to the Desktop because there's NO BUTTON ANYWHERE TO DO THAT! And of course my first instinct was to press the Windows key but that just keeps flipping between the two. Then I tried ESC and that didn't do shit. CtrlAltDel? Nope.

Windows 8 sucks. I hate it. Not because it's different. I don't mind different as long as it improves on the original. But that's exactly it, all the new improvements and features are not a step forward. They're a step back! I'm sure Win8 is wonderful on a Tablet, but as a desktop, it's the single most frustrating OS I've ever used.

Don't buy it.

So people weren't complaining for no reason other than to regurgitate other people's statements?

Holy fuck. The end of the world is truly coming.

I already bought it. Its fine.

I use it on a Desktop every day.

As someone who went from Vista to 8, I think 8 is just fine. It only took me a few minutes to figure out the basics.

Oh right

1. Windows + D
2. You click on the tile called 'Desktop'
3. Alt-Tab helps
4. W8.1 comes out later this year. You get it for free if you already bought W8.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/30/4377214/windows-8-1-preview-features-screenshots

The tile bullshit is fucking cancer, but it's not too hard to avoid it. 8 is definitely a step backward, but it's not impossible to figure out.

@enigma777:

I don't think Balmer had much to do with the UI or the design of OS dude.

You know, I had a similar reaction at first, but I got used to it. And within a week or so, I figured out the whole methodology. If you used Windows 7, it's very similar. What you understand about Windows is still relevant. It's just tied to some more Apple elements which skew broader than what you are used to. We've developed a whole language of understanding Windows computing, and this is a different shell around that same way of thinking.

Keep with it. :)

1. windows key + D for desktop
2. windows key + X for some tools like disk management and system, control panel, etc (also includes power option)
3. windows key + I for settings
4. windows key + Q for searching in specific app (or apps if in desktop mode)
5. click desktop and hit alt + F4 to bring up the old shutdown menu to restart shutdown, whatever.

It's not that bad if you make use of the windows key. I found that W8 made me into a keyboard shortcut guy and I honestly like it now.

There's something to be said for optimizing an OS for the hardware it's going to be used on.

On tablets Windows 8 is totally fine, but that doesn't mean it makes for a good laptop/desktop experience. Just because you can work around the GUI quirks doesn't mean you should have to.

I hate the whole tablet/tiles design as much as the next guy, but come on dude, it isn't that hard to figure out. Also, Ballmer isn't the right dude to be angry at so ... you just sound silly. Anyway, just do what I did. Roll your machine back to Windows 7 and never look back. I think 7 will become the next XP in terms of how much people swear by it and how long it lasts.

I wonder what keyboard combinations they use for people like me who don't have any keyboards with Windows keys on them anymore. Modern keyboards break after just 2 or 3 years, after a while I gave up and dug up an 1987 keyboard that still works perfectly.

Ctrl + Esc brings up the start menu in Windows 7, but that's about it. Used to be that you could use Ctrl-AltGr + D/X/E/whatever the win+letter combination was, but that doesn't seem to work after XP.

I like it. It's fine, it's pretty fast, and I only have to see the tiles when I first start up the PC. And with 8.1 I (don't think I) won't even have to see that.

You have clearly missed something about the desktop when the thing that you click on the desktop is on the very front of the tiles and is clearly labeled DESKTOP. As in, CLICK HERE TO SEE YOUR DESKTOP. And after that if you want to go back to the tiles, you hit the Windows key. And if you want to go back to the desktop, you hit the Windows key again.

Sorry, duder. Windows 8 is really, really simple. Is it obviously designed with touch screens in mind? Yeah, but the process of working around that literally requires you to click "Desktop". Shutting it down requires a click or two extra, but whatever.

Use Start8 and it becomes exactly the same as Windows 7 but performance is improved with a much better file system.

It was worth all 1500 pennies i paid for it

the charms suck though

Of course that would happen. It's like going from one abusive relationship to another abusive relationship. You deserve better, Dalai. You deserve Windows 7.

I deserve nothing after I cheated on Windows XP years ago!

Sure there are keyboard shortcuts, but as the OP said, the problem is that his years of experience are now useless in the face of all the changes in W8. It's daft, and I sure as hell won't buy this for my workplace, as I don't fancy retraining our staff just so they can learn to do everything they already know.

It's a fucking disaster, Ballmer needs to go, he clearly doesnt have clue how to manage his company, just look at the number of high level departures of late, Don Mattrick, Steven Sinofsky, Robbie Bach just to name a few.

I just moved back to Windows 7. All the comparisons are bullshit, on my SSD 7 and 8 boot up at identical speeds. 8 is not faster at all in my experience, it's nice having a real start menu back instead of a third party one and the Windows 7 Task Manager loads quicker than the one on Windows 8, which is nice.

Having moved back to 7, one thing really sticks out; rendering is crisper than Windows 8, even League of Legends looks sharper to me which was a surprise. I'll be sticking with 7 from here on.

edit: and no idea what some of you people are getting so angsty about, Windows 8 is virtually identical to 7 once you start using the desktop. I do not get the hate, although 7 is still better.

"I don't mind different as long as it improves on the original."

You don't say.

Performance really is not improved, synthetic benchmarks mean nothing and from my own findings the boot time comparisons are bullshit, 7 does not load slower than 8 on my system.

@video_game_king: I used Vista for two years. During that time I had two major issues. That's fewer than I've had with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, OS 10.7, and OS 10.8. (I have had fewer with AmigaOS 1.3.) I've a brother-in-law, a programmer of distribution systems for a dozen years, who still uses Vista Professional on his laptop.

Vista was certainly tougher on system resources than Windows 7 or 8, but it was a fine OS.

Now, since the forum editor won't let my move my replies below my posts:

I find two aspects of Windows 8 completely idiotic: the ads in included apps, and the lack of a simple quit function for Metro apps. Honestly, dragging an open program to the bottom of the screen makes sense with touch, but it's unintuitive and cumbersome with a mouse or trackpad.

As for the rest of it, it has better search than any prior releases, it boots much faster, and it's lighter. It's even prettier. I though the ribbon moving from Office to Explorer was a terrible choice. Now I think it's second only to Unity's menu access. The more I can keep my fingers on the keyboard and off of the tracking device, the better.

Now all I need is Windows to finally include a sensible 'Quit' shortcut like OS X's CMD + Q. What UI designer with contorted fingers thought up ALT + F4?

How can you sleep at night? You bastard....

I've been using Windows 8 since it came out. I can safely say you're bad. Your 20 years of Windows knowledge is still applicable if you'd give it a shot. Perhaps you're just incapable of adapting? I mean, really. 3 hours isn't enough to adjust to it. Live with it for a week, or maybe even a month, to see how you really feel about it. Yes, Windows 95 brought in the start button and you're used to it. Now you just need to get used to the charms on the right (corners) and the Metro taskbar on the left (corners).

Your opinion is yours alone, so if you want to hate Windows 8 I won't stop you, but I'll scoff at your rage about how Windows 8 is a step backwards because you got stuck in a loop like a mouse trapped in a maze. I mean, there's only that 3" wide button that says "DESKTOP" to get you off the start screen.

There are also plenty of options to disable those things and get all the under-the-hood benefits of 8 and your precious 7 interface. Give those a shot before spending money on another license for 7 maybe.

The first was using Vista.

@enigma777: If you want you can use this: http://www.startisback.com/

It's really cheap (2 licenses for $3, 5 licenses for $5) and it pretty much makes Windows 8 start at desktop and behave like it was Win7 (Win key opens up start menu, doesn't send you to the Start screen). You can download it and try it out for 30 days.

EDIT: Also if you want to have some comparisons between Start8 and StartIsBack here's a video

Autohotkey works great, with it you can set your own hotkeys for anything, like to easily quit programs..like windows key + Q.

@thebunnyhunter: I used that for that exact purpose for about a day before discovering that one of the programs I regularly use holds SUPER + Q as a shortcut. I really hope Microsoft changes it to something more natural, but considering it's been that way since '95 I'm not holding my breath.

It's not nearly as bad as what you make it out to be. It's actually not bad at all, it's excellent. Just because you had 20 years of Windows knowledge doesn't mean that the OS is bad because it's not what you're used to. Change isn't bad. To shut down a PC is so fucking easy. Sure you might have to Google it once but then what? You know it for the res of your life.

So sick of the arguments against Windows 8. They are so weak and they only serve to exhibit people's lack of tolerance for change. It's a great, fast, and compatible OS. Most of all I find it insanely fun to use. I have a Lenovo Yoga 13 and it can flip into a tablet if I want it to. I use it mostly as a regular laptop, but it's really great to flip back and read on and watch movies or just browse the web when I'm traveling.

so wait your hating an os that is way different from what you are used to, because you dont know how to use it after 3 hours.
i know a lot of people who hated it in the beginning due to the same reasons, but now that they are used to it they love it and dont want to go back.

lol

I still stand by Windows 8 + Start 8 being by far the best version of Windows to date. The UI you are used to, plus a much better file manager, an outstanding Task Manager, super quick boot times, built in .iso mounting, and a bunch of other improvements over Win7.

@shinboy630: Wait what? There is built in ISO mounting?! How do I use this feature?

ive used win8 for the good part of a year now and its totally fine and intuitive .. theres no single feature that actually bothers me anymore , i dont use many win8 style apps so iguess its an overall failure to get people to adopt that , but the rest of the os is absolutely fine and much smoother and more responsive than my win7 pc was.

Less than 10second boots to desktop/start screen even a year later , compared to win7 (without major tweaks to increase ssd performance) its handliong my ssds alot better so thats also a major plus.

This, yes. Absolutely the GUI / Window Manager should be optimized for the display device and the most common input devices for the platform. It should be almost transparent and immediately obvious how to achieve typical interaction. That's why the GUI exists and why we just don't use keyboard shortcuts with a text terminal screen.

Windows 8 has to be the dumbest desktop GUI I've seen in quite some time.

It's too bad because some of the stuff under the hood is better.

I've used Windows 8 for a few minutes but I don't understand what they were thinking.

Despite requiring a lot of figuring out for windows vets, I think I can say it's not newbie friendly either.

And the tablet mode is seemingly designed to glamorize craplets. Why would you do that? Craplets were destroying your product, why would you elevate them.

@xyzygy: You should just be able to right click on any ISO and choose mount, it's pretty neat.

@mlarrabee: I've found OS X to generally have more sensible and comfortable key commands across the board. But then, I also happen to think OS X is generally a vastly superior OS, and really only put up with Windows for games.

Everyone should realize there is an actually a problem if you have to go to Google to discover where features are. For instance: Something I really like about Mac OS X is that they have way more hot keys for functions than Windows so having Windows 8 with many more hot keys is great idea. The issue is they never really bothered user what they are. I thought Linux systems were supposed to be poorly documented by Windows 8 takes that crown now. Not only are things never really exposed to the user there is no rhyme or reason to many of them along with the dualistic let alone schizophrenic nature features and work flows where all too often there are *two* ways to access what should be the same thing that don't behave the same way.

I like how a senior engineer put it: Windows 8 is like going to a house and finding the plumbing is messed up. Sometimes the hot water faucet is on the left and sometimes it is on the right. Sometimes you twist the faucet counterclockwise to turn it on and sometimes you twist it clockwise. In a strict sense it isn't broken or missing anything nor is it impossible to figure out but it is stupid making people guess what should be excising something simple.

The only thing i found different from 7 is a more interesting start bar... rest is the same

I really like it, so I must be doing something wrong, obviously.

Good to know that using an OS for three hours is enough time to adequately judge it.

@sooty: start times are absolutely improved due to the way that the window's kernel now handles OS initialization on bootup.

Your anecdotal findings are fine, but there is a bevy of documented and evidenced benchmarks on the web that says otherwise.

Ya it sucks, I would argue and stuff... but maebe, yes, no, reasons? it just sucks. It really does seriously.

I used 8.1 for a few days. It was definitely lacklustre. It was downright frustrating at times. There is no real logic to the Modern UI. Windows 8 was not built with productivity or desktop usage in mind. It was an absolute nightmare to figure out and even after I figured it out, I still find it a pain to use. Luckily I only had in on a VM on my Mac so I just deleted that and installed a copy of Windows 7 instead.

If it wasn't for games, I would have abandoned Windows probably 5 years ago and moved fully over to OS X and Arch Linux. Both of those OSes feel significantly better thought out and smoother to use than Windows 8. Not to mention they seem way better for doing actual work. Once you get used to using virtual desktop systems like Spaces on OS X, it makes Windows feel especially archaic. Sure you can get third party programs to do that in Windows, but it should be built in at this point. It has been on OS X and various flavours of Linux for a very long time now.

The really fun part of Windows 8.1 was showing it to my dad, who's used computers for over 30 years and Windows since 3.1. He had absolutely nothing nice to say about Windows 8. He said he found it completely unintuitive. He agreed with me that it seemed like the primary focus of Windows 8 was to get people buying crap from the App Store and serving them ads through the Modern Apps.

Also, @pillclinton said it right, you don't use Windows, you put up with Windows. For the time being it is a necessary evil for playing games, that's about it.

Seriously if you judge an OS after using it for 3 hours you don't really need to be putting your opinion out there. Also, if you can't adjust to an OS you really have no business being around a computer.

@lexus2jz said:

It's not 1990 anymore; if the OS is meant to be used by the broad public, it really shouldn't take more than a couple hours to get a feel for it. Not that I think the OP is being particularly fair, but your first sentence is still bullshit.

If your primary reason for liking Windows 8 is "it starts up faster," you should probably try to expand that list to include reasons that involve actually using the OS. Personally, I can't think of any.

Clearly you misunderstood my statement. My point was that he was just making reactionary statements once you know how to work it it works just fine and is not "shit". He easily had the feel for it but chose to call it shit because he had to learn a little bit how to use it. Sorry but I for one would rather have to learn my new product that have my "new" product be exactly the same as the old.