All the smart guys left

[-BobW-]

How many of you are *actually* using Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 betas as main or secondary (but frequently accessed) operating systems, on a every-day basis, to claim it's useless, painful and so on?

I am.  I've been supporting Windows since 3.1.

It's just different. And different doesn't necessarily mean "bad". There will be many drawbacks for people insisting to use Win 8 as it was one of its precedessors, but it won't be so bad for people accustoming to the new interface.

It's not just different.  It's bad design.  Removing the start menu and replacing it with a touch interface is just plain stupid.

The problem, here, is that Microsoft doesn't seem to have the right clues about targets: disabling the start menu on Server 8 is just a way to make it less useable, since servers WON'T ever have any touch interface. But going deeper in the system, you notice that they have also placed some new links here and there to access the same apps/features in a different way, sometimes even faster than before. I am confident they will do something similar also for mainstream releases.

A touch screen interface with full screen apps just makes no sense on a desktop with a 24 inch monitor.  Switching back to an old fashioned desktop with crap support for touch makes no sense on a tablet.

Windows 8 is a confused mess.

[-BobW-]

Old start menu is something I would call bad design. It was good improvement in 1995 but since then it became one of most useless features.

I'm not saying the old start menu was perfect.  I just think the Metro replacement is crap.

The metro start screen doesn't replace the start menu, all of the functionality that is currently part of the start menu is seperated out & you can use Windows 8 without ever using the start screen.

Yeah,  RIGHT clicking an invisible area in the lower left corner to get to some of the old start menu functionality is not intuitive.

Edit: Actually the metro screen does replace the start menu.  It's labeled "Start" and if I hit the key to bring up the start menu Metro is displayed.

One of the most common things I do in Windows 7 is hit the left windows key and then start typing the name of the application I want.  Makes it very easy to launch apps.  Guess where that takes you in 8...