Good News everyone! Windows has added a new "Start Button" to Windows 8! If you drag your mouse to the bottom left hand corner, it pops up! Here it is on my Wife's laptop!
Click to embiggen.
I was so happy when I heard they were bringing the Start Button back! Finally, I thought, I'd be able to have all of my commonly used apps, file locations, and administrator tools in one place again, instead of having to navigate that goddamned unusable "Charms" menu!
LOOK! IT'S A START BUTTON!
Wait, why does the start button look like the Start Screen?
Oh, no, Ollie! I thought to myself the first time I saw the new start button. They didn't just make the start button link to the completely unusable Metro Interface/Start Screen, did they?
Yes, other Ollie, yes they did. Here's where you go if you click the new Windows 8 Start Button:
Hell.
So they didn't actually fix any of the problems with Windows 8. It's like coming home early and catching a teenager who had a house-destroying party while his parents were away. You step over the broken coffee table and wade through ankle-deep piles of half empty beer bottles, in search of the child. You find your still-drunk teenager putting a noticeably bent floor lamp in the corner behind the couch.
"See!" He says with inebriated confidence, "It's all fixed now! The Lamp is back where it's supposed to be!"
I am what is commonly known as a power user. I routinely fix stuff on my old clunky box of a computer by using Regedit. I perform the computing equivalent of open brain surgery on computers on a regular basis.
I've installed a Virtual Machine on my main box to play around with Centos and Apache Tomcat because people with experience in those systems are in demand right now. I'm in the process of getting CompTIA's A+ Linux+ and Network+ certifications. I can make a broken down computer work well.
My wife doesn't care about any of that. She just needs her computer to work so that she can get work done. She couldn't give a damn about RegEdit or Linux or the Mac vs. PC nonsense, she just needs her computer to work when she turns it on.
Neither of us like windows 8. When Power Users and Productivity Users both tell you that your product sucks, your product sucks.
People don't remember anything good that Richard Nixon did because of all of the terrible things that Richard Nixon did. No one's going to think of Richard Nixon and think of The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, or the fact that Nixon deserves some credit for the creation of the EPA, or the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.
No one is going to remember that, because Nixon failed at the most important parts of being a president. He lied, he refused to respect our rights, and he used the engines of state to target his opponents, and he was a terrible person. The only solution to the Nixon presidency was to end it.
No one is going to look at Windows 8 and see how streamlined it is. They're not going to see how easy it is to repair or how stable it is, they're not going to see how efficient it is.
And that's because Windows 8 is like Richard Nixon. You can put lipstick on a pig, and point out some good things if you really want to. But at the end of the day, Windows 8 is terrible, just like Richard Nixon was terrible. It fails at the most important parts of being a good operating system. It fails so badly that the only solution is to get rid of it and start again.
The only thing that can save future versions of windows is scrapping the Metro interface. That's how terrible this is. Some people have been talking about how Windows 8 is like Windows Vista, or like Windows Me, but it's not.
Windows 8 isn't Vista or ME. Windows 8, specifically the Metro interface, is Microsoft Bob:
This was a Terrible Idea.
Windows products will never be cool. Microsoft wasn't built to be a "cool" company. Microsoft products are workhorses. They're supposed to get the job done. With the "Metro" interface, Microsoft is making the mistake of thinking they're selling toys instead of machines that get the job done.
Windows 8 is unusable. To quote a Tech Expert who has a great review here:
I don't use this term as hyperbole. Windows 8 is unusable. And by that I don't mean that "I personally didn't like it," or, "I wasn't used to the conventions of the operating system and preferred the old Windows 7." No, what I mean by unusable is that ultimately the operating system is so poorly designed that it presented insurmountable problems which prevented me from actually getting my work done. If Windows 8 was a car, the Radio would deafen you the second you started it, there wouldn't be a steering wheel, and for some reason there'd been an ejector seat that went off every five minutes. Microsoft claimed that the Windows 8 operating system was more user friendly, but this is the first operating system I've ever had to deal with that can be accurately called User-Hostile.
I wouldn't care a jot if Windows produced a cool product that actually worked. I wouldn't care about some new "Metro Interface" if it allowed me to resize applications that are open within it, and have multiple windows open so that I could multitask. The point is, I can't do work on a Windows 8 machine. It is unusable.
They've got some time, but if Windows doesn't fix this, if they don't Scrap the Metro Interface, they're in trouble.
Imagine a world where Windows is in decline. Mac will pick up some business, but their machines don't suit power users, and their price points don't suit many other people. Imagine a world where an easy-to-use, beautiful operating system is available completely free of charge.
Guess what?
We're almost there:
Take note of the Gear Button in the bottom left.
Microsoft has an opportunity right now to get its act together and make products that people want to use. Geeks like me are already using things like Centos, which stands for the Community Enterprise Operating System, to do the heavy lifting on servers.
Good Quality, easy-to-use, free operating systems are on the way. There are still a few problems right now that prevent the implementation of those operating systems (compatibility being the main one) but those problems will not exist forever.
The Metro Interface of Windows 8 is forcing customers who want to be loyal Microsoft consumers to look elsewhere. Other products are being built, but they're not done yet.
Microsoft can easily turn its ship around and get back on the right track, but the clock is ticking.