I'm a recent convert, going on almost a month I guess.
I think Windows 8.1 is great! Here's some points:
1) Yes, you boot straight to the desktop--mine was prefconfigured that way. I think 8.1 does that if you don't have a touch screen.
2) I didn't think I had a use for the metro interface. I don't use ANY metro apps, but it makes a great start menu once you learn a little about it. Especially, if you are like me and have more than a hundred different apps you actually use and even more that are there for very infrequent use. To me, the original start menu was pretty useless...there was so much on it, it defied good organizaton. To that end I had used a desktop organizer that let me put icons in functional groups. All I had to do was to try and keep things organized on the desktop. It was pretty good software, and free, but at one point last year it stopped working, and I tried to by the newer version, but it didn't install right.
a) The metro interface works like that, and better, except the desktop is it's own screen. You can get an alphabetic listing of apps loaded, or by date of install. Very handy. And on the main metro screen you can arrange everything just how you like it, change the "icon" (tile) size, and pick your most frequent programs just using a Pin to Start menu like we used to.
In fact, if you use multiple monitors like me, you can have the Metro Interface (Start Menu is what they call it now) on one monitor and the desktop on the other. I use two monitors, I selected to have two task bars. If I click the flag on the left monitor, that monitor switches to metro. And I can keep it there, or run a program (either metro or desktop program) and it starts. If it's a destktop program, you go back to the desktop on that monitor. If metro, then it runs there too--while the desktop is still on my other monitor.
And as a start menu, it's fine. Yes, the current monitor screen goes away and becomes the menu, but it's not really much different in disturbance factor than showing the desktop (which of course you can still do--you don't HAVE to use metro really). If you select the start menu and don't want to run anything, just press ESCAPE.
I think it works brilliantly, and better than the start menu for me. And better than icons on your desktop. Now I keep the desktop itself clean.
3) Everything else is like Windows 7 really. Perhaps better...I didn't compare benchmarks, but my new machine has an SSD for the main startup disk, and that makes everything very smooth! Boot times very quick, and reboot too.
4) I love the new copy files progress dialog...gives you a great histogram/chart of the moment to moment copy speeds, as it's copying.
5) I'm not a fan of the newer style MS office toolbars...that's in Explorer (file manager) now. But there's a good amount of functionality there, and I guess it's organized well enough. For historical and functionality reasons, I always use a third party file manager anyway (I use Director Opus, and sometimes Xyplorer. These both support a more sophisticated, tabbed and dual pane approach, plus they have a great rename functionality that uses regular expressions and gives rename previews. They also have very good search features.
6) Speaking of search, I highly recommend anyone running Windows gets a copy of the free "Search Everything". If you have a lot of drives and files like me, it will change your life. Basically, the only feature I missed from my Mac days is relatively "instant" search by file name. Search everything will show you any matching file on your system even quicker...AS YOU TYPE. Then you can open the folder by right clicking on the relevant result, or just double click to open the file. Other than copying and arranging files, there's never a need to actually navigate to any file/folder anymore if you use it. (Also: a shareware program, Listary, will also let you search using Search Everything right from any file open dialog as well, though for most programs you can just go back to your Search Everything window and double click and never use a file open dialog.)
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