Nice video from LifeHacker:

Understood. Thank you.

That sounds logical, Windows 8 is a very fluxed up looking OS.

What the Lifehacker video can't show you is what it's like when you're trying to do work on it.

For instance, load up say Office or Photoshop and a Metro app. Switching between them is a huge pain in the rear. 

You launch everything from Metro and then have to jump back to the desktop experience.  

I hope no one is missing the irony that the Metro examples are...widgets.  It would be like if every DesktopX widget required you to go to a full screen DesktopX environment rather than trying to exist alongside your existing desktop.

When you use Windows 8, you can see they got a lot of things right and then they blow it by trying to force desktop users into using their PC like it was a tablet.

And the deal where you drag open apps into the desktop from the left screen edge....forget that when using dual monitors and Multiplicity or Mouse Without Borders....what a pain!!

Here's my video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efqpryu5SRI

The idea of switching from say Word to a weather widget that is running 2560x1440 is baffling.

And let's keep in mind, most of the UI involves moving from the bottom left (or top left) to the top right (or vice versa).  

They should have let the WIndows phone team design this. They knew good UI.

Okay, i'm running the Win8 Consumer Preview now.  Even in desktop mode, they're dumbing it down.  Why is Flip3D gone?  Now it's just a vertical version of Alt+Tab.  And when you do Windows Key+Tab, you can't go back to what you're currently running.  You have to go to something else first before going back to your original window.  Why on earth do we need two Alt+Tabs (the classic horizontal and the useless new vertical one)?  I liked Flip3D.  It showed that Microsoft still cared about eye-candy back during the Vista-era.  But now it's about running an interface that my grandma would like.

Another thing I really liked that MS (almost) took away is custom icon sizes in explorer.  Now we're limited to just a few different icon sizes, and nothing in between 128px and 256px.  Most of my folders on my host machine are between 128 and 256px because 128's too small and 256 is too big in my opinion.

However, I do like the new ribbon, so not all hope is lost.  And the "up one level" button is back.  Vista and Seven made it difficult to navigate on upper levels in the folder hierarchy.  So at least one feature from XP is finally returning.

Windows 8 could REALLY use some UI customization right about now...

The old task manager still exists.  And so does msconfig.  Just use the Run Dialog hotkey (Windows Key+R) and type their respective names, "taskmgr.exe" and "msconfig.exe".  So it appears you can still do stuff the old fashioned way.  I just did "services.msc" and it brought up the list of services.  So without the start menu, you'd have to be more of a power user to get around to the same stuff you could do right from the Start Menu from older versions of Windows.  A step backwards indeed.

So why are there two versions of Task Manager as well?

So, why doesn't Microsoft take the smarter route and make two different main versions of 8?  A PC and Moblie Version, instead of integrating everything into one product?  The desktop part being for PCs, Metro for mobile devices, and to share some (but not all) features across each platform.  Why would mobile devices such as smartphones need a Desktop Mode anyway?  You'd have to constantly scroll, and you wouldn't get anything done.  While Metro for PCs is nothing but a clunky, single-tasked app that won't allow PC users to switch between applications easily.  At least they could of allowed Metro apps to be run WITHIN desktop mode in it's own window, but NO...it has to take up the full screen.  PC versions could come in two flavors, Home and Pro, and mobile devices would come with just one, Mobile. 

And what's with the "hybridization" of everything these days?  Instead of products being great at one thing like in the good old days, they have to be half-arsed at many things.  That's explains Windows 8 in a nutshell.  So far, i'd rate Windows 8 a 3 out of 10.  It's disappointing, but it could of been worse.  Kudos for the ribbon UI in desktop mode.  That's about the only great thing for Windows 8.

I really hope that Windows 9 will fix these issues and become a great product once again.  But I doubt it.  By 2014, 2015 (when Windows 9 should be out), PCs won't be the dominating computing platform, and either Windows will shift into the tablet/smartphone market (and rid of the Desktop entirely), or die off.

I don't believe the mobile version will have a desktop mode at all.

Also as I understand it WinRT (which stays in the Metro interface) is meant to replace Win32 entirely.  In time, thats a lot of legacy baggage out of the way.  Win32 started in Windows NT/95, for reference.

It's almost like the idea for this train wreck, as Brad calls it (and very well), was born when someone at MS said 'We need more apps for our Windows phones so we can make them popular and also profit 30% from the work of others via a Windows store, just like Apple are doing now with their App store! How can we do that?' and someone else replied 'I know! Let's force all the thousands of Windows developers to make apps for our phones! Just make desktop Windows a big phone UI!'.

And everybody clapped at how clever and devious they were.

 Edit: guess that was an older preview. bleh..