Poll: Hands up those who like the "Modern UI"?

Which interface do you prefer?

  • prefer using Metro to the Win7 interface

    Votes: 49 27.8%

  • I prefer the Win7 interface to Metro.

    Votes: 98 55.7%

  • I'm undecided.

    Votes: 29 16.5%
  • Total voters
    176
The desktop is a shell it is explorer.exe. Metro is just a fullscreen application that has been bolted on to explorer.exe and had the ability to end task the application removed. I don't think it will be long before the metro interface can be end tasked. Just a shame they didn't add that feature in. They could have just made it run as a service and you stop the service and go back to a usable desktop again, would have been great.

I would rather use media portal or xbmc than the metro ui.

If you end task explorer.exe it kills the old style explorer as well as the metro ui. Not only does it kill the ui but it also prevents all the metro apps that are running and that show in the alt+tab from loading. Compared to normal applications which can still be used outside the explorer process. Just realy MS attempt at making it seem like the interface and all the apps are apart of the explorer process when realy it is just bolted on to prevent people from closing it all down.
 
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Oh gee, I wonder what the default shell is in Windows 8?

Zl47S.png

Metro is a start menu replacement and also a framework for running apps in.

Desktop software, including a shortcut to your empty desktop, can be placed in the Metro start menu.

Some of you may remember that even Windows 95 would automatically open the start menu for you on first login. Metro just automatically opens it for you every time, and reverts back to it if there is nothing else going on.
 
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Lum said:
All those people thinking of buying Start8, should have a look at StartIsBack.

It turns out MS left most of the Win7 start menu code buried in Win8's Explorer.exe, in order to support Jump Lists. StartIsBack simply calls that code, bringing back the real start menu, rather than being a slightly clunky clone like Start8.

It's well worth the $3 he is charging for a two computer licence.
Click to expand...

I've finally relented and tried the startisback trial. I feel a sense of relief now for some reason.
 
Lum said:
All those people thinking of buying Start8, should have a look at StartIsBack.

It turns out MS left most of the Win7 start menu code buried in Win8's Explorer.exe, in order to support Jump Lists. StartIsBack simply calls that code, bringing back the real start menu, rather than being a slightly clunky clone like Start8.

It's well worth the $3 he is charging for a two computer licence.
Click to expand...

Sorry, nearly spat my beer out there.

Are you telling me people are shelling out 3 dollars for an 'App' to get a utility that makes a start menu appear?
 
shuffle said:
Sorry, nearly spat my beer out there.

Are you telling me people are shelling out 3 dollars for an 'App' to get a utility that makes a start menu appear?
Click to expand...

Why not?

Many people pay for replacement launchers on Android, such as Nova, that lets you add tabs to the app drawer.

It's 3 dollars, that's 2 quid and that's for two licences, so it's £1

It's the same price as a 500ml bottle of coke.

Edit: Lots of people also paid for ubit menu, that add the original pre-ribbon menus back into Office 2007 and 2010. That one was free for home users, but I'm still very grateful it exists.
 
A pound for an app here and a pound for an app there.
This is not where Microsoft should be going, but they have. And thats why the reputation of MS in the last few weeks has taken a nose dive - my opinion. They are not Apple. They should remember that. what a joke.
 
Launcher apps like nova and apex add quite a lot of extra functionality - it really isnt just about adding tabs to the app drawer lol.

These start menu replacement/devolution apps though, people aren't buying them to increase functionality, they're buying them because they refuse to adapt and embrace change either in either the way they work with windows or the software they use (ubit menu, really?????). Baffling really.
 
james.miller said:
These start menu replacement/devolution apps though, people aren't buying them to increase functionality, they're buying them because they refuse to adapt and embrace change either in either the way they work with windows or the software they use (ubit menu, really?????). Baffling really.
Click to expand...

I'm not refusing to adapt. I've given it a good month and I fail to see any benefit for me but I can see some simple tasks are taking more time. It's not that I don't want to like Metro. I've tried but I see no point in battling on when I can make things easier again.
 
uBit menu is awesome. I'm only an occasional user of Office these days. I'll write the odd letter, or if I'm doing documentation in work I'll possibly get involved in some heavy Excel use for a few days.

All uBit does is add an extra tab to the ribbon, with a recreation of the old Office menus.

What does this mean? When I'm in no particular hurry I can take the time to try and poke around the ribbon and try to find where MS have hidden the option. When I am in a hurry I can just go **** this, switch to the uBit tab and then the option will be right where I'm used to, back in the same place it always has been since I first started using office in the 16bit era!

As for Metro, if I could get it to stay open on my second monitor even while I am using desktop apps on my main monitor then I would use Metro a lot more. The live tiles are actually quite good. Just need someone to make a CPU/GPU temperature monitor tile.
 
Lum said:
uBit menu is awesome. I'm only an occasional user of Office these days. I'll write the odd letter, or if I'm doing documentation in work I'll possibly get involved in some heavy Excel use for a few days.

All uBit does is add an extra tab to the ribbon, with a recreation of the old Office menus.

What does this mean? When I'm in no particular hurry I can take the time to try and poke around the ribbon and try to find where MS have hidden the option. When I am in a hurry I can just go **** this, switch to the uBit tab and then the option will be right where I'm used to, back in the same place it always has been since I first started using office in the 16bit era!
Click to expand...

you've had 5 years to learn the ribbon:p :)

As for Metro, if I could get it to stay open on my second monitor even while I am using desktop apps on my main monitor then I would use Metro a lot more. The live tiles are actually quite good. Just need someone to make a CPU/GPU temperature monitor tile.
Click to expand...

I agree with that, i think they've missed a trick there.
 
james.miller said:
you've had 5 years to learn the ribbon:p :)
Click to expand...

Not really. My employer only moved from 2003 -> 2007 last year, and I only bought Office 2010 last year.


One other issue with the Metro start menu is it doesn't take into account the amount of crap software out there that will spew 20 entries into your start menu, most of which are readme.txt files and links to various websites. Metro just happily displays all of them as apps by default.

Not sure how you'd solve that, but it's still annoying.
 
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I just thought those people who are saying it takes extra clicks to open a program or game are wrong..

99% of the time u can stay in desktop mode. you can put all your most used programs / games on your desktop or even customize the start screen to have all your most used programs / games then with 2 clicks you've opened a program or game, in fact that's less clicks than using a start menu which needs 3 or 4 clicks

example... using a start menu you'd click start then point to all programs then u may need to click the slider up/down then click on I.E steam folder so it drops down the list then click steam to start it... so that's 4 clicks

using metro, from the desktop go to bottom left and click then move your mouse fully right or left to slide right or left then click on the program or game u want to start.. so that's 2 clicks


p.s yes I typed all that^^^ by clicking each letter
 
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