tompaulco's Journal: Windows 8 is unusable

I knew the metro interface was going to suck on Windows 8 machines, but I hadn't realized that you can't effectively turn it off and use the computer as though it were not a cell phone or table.
Today I got a new laptop for a contracting project and the laptop is Windows 8. I have discovered that it is absolutely unusable. While trying to navigate to something on the desktop, other applications will just randomly come up and take over the screen. There is some stupid widget that comes up and says "slide to switch apps", which will not go away and hides items behind it. If you try to reboot the computer, it just says "Getting Windows ready Don't turn off your computer" and doesn't actually restart for about 20 minutes.
It is pretty obvious to me that this OS is completely unusable except as a tablet or phone OS and probably not even then.

Restore the desktop

[Bosconian]

Just go with Classic Shell

http://classicshell.net/ [classicshell.net]

You can skip Metro entirely and just use the desktop with a full Start Menu almost identical to Windows 7. It's quite elegant. There are also a bunch of other free and commercial Start Menu mods for Win 8 / 8.1.

I don't have this problem.

[pslytely psycho]

With the latest update it only goes to metro if you have a touchscreen. Even on the 8.1 update you could specify booting to desktop.
I only see metro if I want too, using it as an easier to read quicklaunch.
Boots faster than 7, and I don't use the quickboot, that's a sham that doesn't load all the drivers, so I can't actually start a game immediately, useful only if you're not activating anything better than a browser.
Much smaller footprint. My 8 core runs at 2% at idle.
And I never have had:
" While t

viva la progman.exe

[Bill Dog]

I haven't had the chance to use the new Windows UI yet, but I've seen it on Windows Server 2012 R2 at our sysadmins' desks at work, and I'm pretty sure in the Windows world it's here to stay. That is, I think that's your program launcher now. Good for me, because I thought having all your installed programs hanging off a single menu was a collosally stupid idea. (Kinda like having all your file system volumes and shares and directories (and zip archives!) all in one single mongo tree. Dumb, dumb, dumb;

Huh?

[cerberusss]

You mean they take over without you activating the app?

It sounds like they replaced a modal popup with a full-screen version. Ridiculous, really.

It's a new machine

[Ken Heslip]

Update to 8.1 and you can set the desktop to be the default start up experience. What applications are taking over the screen? I've never experienced that. The widgets are help tips for those who aren't familiar with the new gestures. They'll disappear as soon as you follow their instruction.