Windows 8 - How are you using/configuring it?

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daglesj

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 7, 2005
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Okay now installed Windows 8 on one of my desktop machines. I've finally settled down with how I use it.

In order to reduce the switching back and forth I've just added the Control Panel and System icons to the Taskbar (plus my other usual apps), switched any program defaults to the desktop apps and I find I can stay in Desktop land all day just like before.

Metro hardly gets a sniff.

Works a treat. Nice.
 
I use a number of Metro apps even on the desktop, some of the news apps are quite good, the Kindle reader though the desktop version if better but the Metro version is better on tablets. Couple of the games are nice. The Reader app is a great PDF reader especially on a tablet. As time goes on I think there's going plenty of Metro apps that most people even on desktops will want to use.
 
Yeah the Apps need to improve a lot. Currently there is little there that I cant get to through a simple bookmark/tab in a browser and I can scroll up and down instead of left to right.

Just how many news/cookery and weather apps do I need? Nothing is drawing me in personally right now.

I'm one of those that can do 90% of what I do in just a browser. The rest is done in Word.
 
daglesj said:
Yeah the Apps need to improve a lot. Currently there is little there that I cant get to through a simple bookmark/tab in a browser and I can scroll up and down instead of left to right.
Click to expand...

True, but this is just the pre-launch stuff, there's going to be a lot apps coming on launch day that aren't in the store now, particularly games. With DX support in Metro it's really easy to port existing mobile and even desktop games to Metro. For reading, the left to right scrolling I think works well in landscape, not so great in portrait.
 
Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope are excellent time wasters, and playing FN without multitouch using a mouse is an added challenge :D

I have a few pdf's that take too long to open or won't open properly with Reader, so I switched to Sumatra.
 
MrCrispy said:
Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope are excellent time wasters, and playing FN without multitouch using a mouse is an added challenge :D

I have a few pdf's that take too long to open or won't open properly with Reader, so I switched to Sumatra.
Click to expand...

I use Sumatra as well and favor it on the desktop over Reader there. Sumatra actually works well with a touch device which is why I started using it, very fast but the classic menus aren't so great on a tablet but not bad when the menu font size is increased. I've loaded to pretty big PDFs in Reader and haven't had any problems. I think it's a bit faster and smother than Sumatra overall.

Question if you don't mind, what's FN? Thanks!
 
Desktop mostly with jumps to Start Screen for apps not pinned to taskbar
 
I'm finding ways to avoid Metro, though I find it still gets in the way more times than I'd like. The only Metro app I've found even remotely useful is the weather app and only because there doesn't seem to be a way to bring up widgets on the desktop any longer. I'm sorry, but those built-in Metro apps are a load of crap.

With that being said, I do like the desktop experience a lot. The chrome-less windows in plain white color-scheme looks like nice clean sheets of paper on my screen. It's very crisp and snappy. I like the multi-monitor taskbar, but I wish it offered more functionality, like the ability to pin stuff to the second monitor's taskbar. Oh, and the default icons are from Windows 7, they don't quite go with the new scheme.
 
maw said:
I'm finding ways to avoid Metro, though I find it still gets in the way more times than I'd like.
Click to expand...

I'm finding Metro on a dual screen setup something of a mixed blessing. The full screen Start Screen on a dual screen 24" 1920x1200 is actually fantastic. You can put so much on the Start Screen with a large monitor and move through it effortlessly. Unfortunately Metro behavior of multiple monitors can suck. Open the Start Screen on a different monitor than a Metro app is currently one and then that Metro app moves to the screen that you opened the Start Screen on. That's just not acceptable.

If you really can't accept Metro and are looking to completely avoid it, Windows 8 may not be for you. I do think that you have to find a way to accept it to enjoy Windows 8 as a consumer. It's possible to lock a machine down, remove all of the Metro apps, and being pretty much on the desktop, but on a consumer machine it's something that if you're always trying to avoid it will be frustrating I think.
 
heatlesssun said:
If you really can't accept Metro and are looking to completely avoid it, Windows 8 may not be for you. I do think that you have to find a way to accept it to enjoy Windows 8 as a consumer. It's possible to lock a machine down, remove all of the Metro apps, and being pretty much on the desktop, but on a consumer machine it's something that if you're always trying to avoid it will be frustrating I think.
Click to expand...

I'm slowly accepting the fact that Metro is going to rear it's head every now and then. I guess I could live with it if there were some interesting apps to use, but as it is, none of them even remotely compare to the desktop equivalents that I can download from elsewhere, so for me Metro is an annoying detour that I have to occasionally take on my way to somewhere else.
 
I'm not HAPPY, but I'm tolerating it rather well. The way I figure, I can either fight it or learn to embrace it, as it's the same interface for Server 2012.

I can live with the Start screen concept. I just would like to customize it a bit more. Make icons smaller, get rid of the auto-organize so I can make 1 wide columns for apps I don't use that often (Office)
 
maw said:
Oh, and the default icons are from Windows 7, they don't quite go with the new scheme.
Click to expand...

Yeah they never get those right do they. I am always a bit disappointed when I find parts that are still from three OS back.

I reckon re-doing all the icons would be the most expensive part of the project.:D
 
batteriesnotincluded said:
I can live with the Start screen concept. I just would like to customize it a bit more. Make icons smaller, get rid of the auto-organize so I can make 1 wide columns for apps I don't use that often (Office)
Click to expand...

This bugs me too, but since I don't put much on the Start Screen, I can ignore it for the most part.
 
I'm using Win 8 with Lightroom 4. For everything else, Ubuntu. Win 8 has lots of nice eye candy and is very fast (as to be expected) on my brand new build - i5 3570k. In November my plan is to do the fresh install of Win 8. The good thing is I'm getting some discipline - all of my office docs are being kept in the cloud, all data, and nothing of consequence scattered on the disks. Of course I have multiple backups. The only problem that I encountered is lack of support for a Kingston USB 3 card reader, and I can live with that. I just canceled an order with Amazon for Win 7 Pro OEM $130.
 
maw said:
and the default icons are from Windows 7, they don't quite go with the new scheme.
Click to expand...

This is what really bugs me. The difference between the new window ui and the old icon set is very visually jarring. I wonder if microsoft will ever patch this, or if there will be a third party app that replaces the dated icons.
 
loafer87gt said:
This is what really bugs me. The difference between the new window ui and the old icon set is very visually jarring. I wonder if microsoft will ever patch this, or if there will be a third party app that replaces the dated icons.
Click to expand...

I think the problem is even if Microsoft redid all of it's icons, what about all of the zillions from 3rd parties? There's just no way that it could ever be consistent without a effort across lots of developers and that's just probably never going to happen.
 
daglesj said:
In order to reduce the switching back and forth I've just added the Control Panel and System icons to the Taskbar (plus my other usual apps), switched any program defaults to the desktop apps and I find I can stay in Desktop land all day just like before.

Metro hardly gets a sniff.
Click to expand...
I don't spend extensive amounts of time in Control Panel or System (ie. once I set the preferences how I wanted, I never looked back). What's there that requires shortcuts?

I've been using a second monitor for the Modern UI stuff. Instead of simply swearing it off, I've been trying Modern UI apps in regular usage scenarios. Right now I'm using the Mail app for most of my correspondence at work (Google Apps), and aside from some 1.0 glitches it seems to do alright for simple stuff. I just need to get that "Sent from Windows Mail" to stop auto-adding as a sig.

The Newegg app is nice. 8)
 
SuperSubZero said:
The Newegg app is nice. 8)
Click to expand...

Awesome app. I think these are the kinds of apps that will help Metro catch on. I hardly even use the Newegg website anymore because the basics of this app are so much better than the website though the app isn't as functional. But if the app had app all of the functionality of the site I honestly couldn't see anyone on Windows 8 ever using the web site.
 
SuperSubZero said:
...The Newegg app is nice. 8)
Click to expand...

You guys are gonna get me in trouble talking about Newegg apps... :D

"Win + X" will bring up a little popup menu that will get you directly into control panel, task manager, command prompt, etc. I also do custom shell extensions that I use to shortcut to things. For example to add the registry editor to the right click of your desktop "Computer" icon, merge the following into the registry:
---------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Registry Editor]
"HasLUAShield"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Registry Editor\command]
@="regedit.exe"
-------------------------

You can do this with pretty much any program. The "HasLUAShield" displays the little shield to show that the program requires admin elevation. Don't include it for anything that does not. You guys get the idea.
 
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