My biggest issue was the metro stuff; mostly the default apps that would open in full screen mode.

Opening a PDF or an image in a new Windows 8 installation was always a frustrating surprise.

The start menu was confusing, and anytime you'd go into a metro-type application it was jarring.

Ah. I guess my experience was different because I installed apps that I preferred over the built-in ones and found a start menu replacement.

Wow. Sounds like Microsoft really nailed the experience on that one. Step 1: replace everything with something else.

I don't know what you mean.

There are pre-installed apps on OS X, Linux, and Windows. If you don't care for the pre-installed ones, you can install ones that you prefer. Same with the kind-of default 'controls' like the Start Menu, or the Dock, or what various Linux distros call their equivalents.

Windows 8/8.1 is Windows 7 with a few improvements and some "Metro" stuff that you can almost entirely avoid.

Needing to replace the start menu, which is an integral part of the desktop manager hardly qualifies as a standard practice for a consumer-grade operating system.

I found the shipped state of Windows 8 unusable as a power user so I needed to replace it as well. I consider that a complete failure.

   Needing to replace the start menu, which is an integral part of the desktop
   manager hardly qualifies as a standard practice for a consumer-grade operating system.

And I find the OS X Dock to be an utter abomination. I took advantage of the power I have to install software and installed a replacement.

   I found the shipped state of Windows 8 unusable as a power
   user so I needed to replace it as well. 

Good on you.

Though, I still don't understand what the comment I was replying to meant by, "Step 1: replace everything with something else."

> Though, I still don't understand what the comment I was replying to meant by, "Step 1: replace everything with something else."

If you have to replace things like the "start menu", the built in pdf reader, the built in settings app, etc. etc. all because of the same UI design flaw it starts to feel like you are fighting with the OS to get to the level of productivity with which you were previously accustomed. If you feel the need to have to do that, then something is wrong with the design of the OS. Obviously this is a subjective opinion that can differ for each individual, but considering the horrible adoption rate of Windows 8 it seems likely that this is an opinion shared by many.

Objectively, forcing apps to run in fullscreen mode can be a huge waste of real estate for large computer monitors. The gestures required to summon the "charms" bar and the app switcher are completely unintuitive and awkward for a desktop UI. Things like that make far more sense for mobile devices, but it appears like Windows 8 tried to combine mobile and desktop UIs in a confusing, frustrating, an inefficient way. It's quite telling that these were major design errors as Windows 10 backtracks from that philosophy almost completely.

This type of complaint needs highlight the fact that "design flaws" are a matter of course for any major operating systems. Without doing that, it comes off as a fairly one-sided, myopic point of view.

Plenty of people hate the built-in components of OS X like the single Menu bar, the Dock, the Finder and lots of other things. That's why there have always been apps to (attempt to) replace them (unfortunately, Apple typically doesn't give you the same degree of control that Microsoft does).

Apple has also back-tracked on many things in OS X, like finally (finally!) giving people the ability to resize a window by any edge or corner (after years and years of telling everybody that having only "one true way" of doing it was somehow better. Just like "one mouse button" was better for everybody until it wasn't. Just like so many things with Apple. They seem to be fond of buttons with no text and just an icon these days. And I've seen a ton of people complain about it. Unfortunately, that would too difficult to replace with a third party app.)

The OS X Dock is the crappiest integral part of OS X and I'd love to replace it, but it simply cannot be done properly because Apple is the only one allowed to access a certain key API (the one that changes NSScreen.visibleFrame).

I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me, agreeing with me, or just providing additional commentary. I think OSX got some things right (cmd tab/cmd tilde behavior, app install/uninstall, spotlight), and other things less right.

Ultimately, I'm primarily a linux user who does cross platform dev so I end up dealing with everyone's crap (linux included, I'm looking at you X11).

When you call something a complete failure without also mentioning that other OSes are also considered complete failures by the same standard, it seems a little one-sided.

You have to add and replace all sorts of things to make OS X usable. Apple just added the ability to resize a window by it's edges a couple of years ago! And there still is no tiling. And the finder still sucks. But it's got the all-important Unix underpinnings and it's not from Micro$oft.

This can often apply to Linux, too. So every major desktop OS requires replacing stuff here and there. Not sure what conclusions we can draw from that, though.

It is true that this can apply to Linux as well. There are plenty of distros available that package as little as possible or provide choice during initial installation.

That is where I know that Linux wins over everything else. A huge number of applications, where there is always at least 1 good alternative. Microsoft and Apple can't compete on choice.

The conclusion that you can draw from this is that the person I was replying to has no point.

These comments are always like this, but the 'aside from XXX its not bad!' is different every time, and writing off a horrible user experience like solitare not being in a freaking window is not a minor thing. Its a huge fucking annoyance

True - and every operating system has these little niggles that are huge annoyances to some people - c.f. the person who switched to Linux because one version of Minesweeper in Windows needs an internet connection.

But if solitaire not being in a window leads one to the conclusion that the solitaire-containing version of Windows is one of the worst desktop operating systems a person has used in the last 10 years - or that it's indicative of a horrible overall user experience... well then I think one is being at best hyperbolic, and at worst complaining about something that would get a person run out of a discussion about any other operating system - after you're given a selection of about a hundred different solitaire programs to try.

>True - and every operating system has these little niggles that are huge annoyances to some people - c.f. the person who switched to Linux because one version of Minesweeper in Windows needs an internet connection.

That was what 'caused the "screw this" moment', i.e. it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So you don't mind that when you right click on something the contextual menu appears at the bottom of the screen, far far away on a 4k display. Or that if the system wants to tell you something, instead of a discreet notification on the bottom right of the screen, a big banner will cover half the screen while you are in the middle of something.

This system was full of moronic design decisions, only some of which have been reversed in windows 10.

> there may very well be a configuration setting to bypass it and go directly to the desktop

You're right, there is. The ability to configure this was one of the updates in 8.1 from 8.0 and was included presumably because of so many complaints in user feedback about it forcing you to click through the metro screen to get to desktop on every reboot.

My "screw this" moment was when I discovered you needed an internet connection to play Minesweeper.

You don't. It works without internet. As Minesweeper is simply a program you can use the old one in Windows 10.

The Windows Store version does, IIRC.

Win8 wasn't properly finished. Vista failed but it was a massive change from Xp and they couldn't, I believe, tailor it properly. Win8 was a reactionary attempt at following multidevice OS / smartphone UX trend with the new found creativity of Metro, but really it felt like a demo, things were too big, too frail, too crude. Win10 doesn't convey that for me, they took the nice elements of Metro design language, adjusted and integrated them into a flat win7 UX.

Don't you have to deal with Metro when the control panel applet or app you need is Metro-style? I have to see that screen when I hit the Super key to search for an application by name.

Control Panel accessed from the desktop in Windows 8 is the normal Control Panel from previous Windows versions.

Tried searching for control panel in the start menu and it launch the desktop control panel for me in 8.1

I was trying to uninstall something and I hit the Super key and started typing "programs" and up came some Metro app that showed a few apps sorted by size. It didn't show all installed programs. For that I had to find the old Add/Remove Programs control panel which has a regular desktop interface.

If I remember right it's because the Metro app was called "Settings" but the control panel still existed as well. I would always just do Win+E then click on the control panel icon in the ribbon.

IIRC, some settings were only accessible through the metro settings and not the normal control panel. (user config maybe?)