I think the problem with completely different UX experiences is exactly that. People want a similar experience with the same software. Microsoft assumed with Windows 8 that the tablet interface would work on the desktop but people don't want that watered down of an experience. Windows 10 at least lets you use tablet-designed applications on the desktop in a more integrated way.

Wait what? The "Metro" was the combining of the GUI for touch and mouse. I actually prefer the Win 8 UI since it is more of a tiled window manager like I use in Linux. Windows 10 is back to click with a mouse. Windows 8 I never touched the mouse unless I needed it in a program.

> Windows 10, for comparison, more closely combines the tablet and desktop modes

It was a move away from Tablets and back to laptop desktop focus.

The Metro interface was not optimized for mouse operations; it was a touch UI you could "touch" with a mouse. All apps were full screen. UI elements were hidden and meant to be swiped from the sides of the screen. Nothing about Metro seemed to be optimized for the desktop.

But thankfully you could completely switch modes and have a regular Windows 7-like desktop experience. When I ran Windows 8.1 it booted straight to the desktop, I used ClassicShell for the start menu, and I never saw a single metro app.

With Windows 10 can run metro applications in regular desktop windows as well as switch to tablet mode and run regular desktop applications and metro apps full screen or tiled.

Why? I mean, what are the changes that make you say that?

I'm weird I know but I preferred Windows 8.1 and more so on touch devices. I have about 20 touch screens at work and I miss the charms and the swipe in from the right and the easy short cuts. Open a program in Windows 8 was win-enter. Windows 10 it is win-arrow up. silly example but these arguments are usually silly when talking preferences.

Windows 8 on the "desktop" was a carrot for all the computer manufacturers who decided, that year, to put touch screens on everything.

A better strategy for Microsoft would have been to call it Surface OS and release it just for tablets (and phones) and focus on Metro and have the desktop as a cool add-on for their tablet OS. For the desktop, they should have done a Windows 8 that was more like 7 yet still have Metro but more as an add-on. This wouldn't have helped you as much but it would have been better for them overall.

I say open up the ability to run optional desktop environments like we have in Linux. I can have my tiled window manager (I am sure 2% of users would LOVE it and 98% would HATE it) and then others could use one of the official desktop environments. No need for a whole OS version. Its bad enough we have Pro and non-Pro Windows 10.

Although my suggestion sounds like two different operating systems, it's really just about how it's marketed. Fundamentally the technology doesn't have to be any different.

Of course, if your OS is flexible enough things like tiling can be done as add on: http://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap

It can be done without repeating the Windows 8 fiasco - which seemed to be tailored for touch-input devices, leading to clunky experience on a regular PC.

Eg. see Remix OS, or Android for desktop: http://www.jide.com/remixos

It's Android, but from the look of it, it's adapted nicely: https://youtu.be/TjAxCWO84L4 (I admit I haven't used it myself, but even if there are some quirks not visible at first glance, my point is not that Remix OS hit the sweet spot, only that it can be done in principle).

But well, that wasn't continuity between phone and desktop. It was continuity between GUI and CLI (openSUSE's YaST).

Whether it really makes sense trying to find a compromise between [mouse&keyboard + big screen] and [touch + small screen] is then again an entirely different question. And in my opinion, this isn't happening until we have a good generic solution for projecting the vast number of different screens that you need on a phone UI to one big, densely-settled screen as is necessary for a good desktop UI.

Gee, not only is it not bad it seems like it's really good. The context seems so different as to necessitate different UX.

I personally used it the whole time it was available. Despite the fact that it was unfinished, it was still vastly superior in many ways to other desktop systems. So, I'm quite certain that I don't know what you mean at all when you say "UX disaster".

And if you look at the marketshare of Windows 7 vs. Windows 8/8.1, you see a pretty big difference.

StatCounter (includes mobile): 20.36% vs. 5.64%

netmarketshare.com: 48.27% vs. 9.61%

Steam Hardware Survey: 36.38% vs. 10,78%

Now, you might respond with Windows 7 simply having more adoption, because it has been around longer, which is a valid point. I can only really refute that with the anecdotal evidence, that Windows 7 is currently seeing more growth off of the people moving away from XP and Windows 10, than Windows 8 is seeing.

Personally, I still think the lack of a start menu is very disruptive - and since Microsoft re-introduced it in Windows 10 makes me think I was not alone in thinking so.

Come 8.1 and this was partially reversed, with Metro apps being possible to manage much like Win32 programs (showing up on taskbar, could be closed or minimized via icons top right).

And i must say i kinda like using the start page concept for launching programs once i have things set so i go right to the "list" rather than dealing with the live tiles.

I have been contemplating getting a smaller Windows based tablet as an alternative to my existing Android one.

Hah. The first time I played a music file in Win8, the application took over my screen, and I had 50 Cent glaring at me (almost larger than life) while my song was playing. I guess he though my music was inadequate, and thought I should buy his stuff instead.

Also, just going to the program tiles screen was just a wall of visual noise. All these tiles were animated, it was hard to focus on what was there with all that going on. You can (and I did) turn off animations for them (or just delete them from the shortcut list), which helped a lot. So yeah, that was not a great first experience.

I'm totally fine with Windows 10 these days, at least as far as UI goes.

True! OTOH, I have never seen one of our users use a Metro App intentionally. At most they would run into the builtin PDF viewer if no other viewer was installed or registered to open PDFs.

One of my coworkers has a Windows phone, and he tells me on the phone the interface is very nice. But I still cannot imagine what the people at Microsoft must have been thinking...

On the other hand, I don't think they will ever get completely rid of that thanks to the huge, huge body of existing third-party apps.

How about a citation?