For my windows partition, I actually quite enjoy the move from win 7 to win 8. Here's a few things that I've taken a liking to:

1) Boot into desktop mode. This was introduced in 8.1 and definitely better for my uses than having to open a desktop from the metro UI in 8.0.

2) Win-f, I used to use win-r quite a bit to run programs quickly. However, with the changes MS has made with caching, win-f is just as fast and saves me from having to remember the commands for system preferences and the like.

3) Powershell. Win 8 ships with powershell and it's actually decent.

4) I have personally found it to run faster than win 7 as it shifts more UI load to the graphics card.

Windows 7 also ships with Powershell.

Did anyone found it usable? I struggled to automate some recursive copy/filter of files. I don't remember that task taking that long to automate on Linux.

It's a doddle. You just have to install Cygwin and do it in bash.

http://cygwin.com/

Indeed.

I found PowerShell incredibly crunchy.

I will admit I was paid to drive hyperv from ruby remotely. What happened is that WinRM wasn't usable and that PowerShell was the lowest barrier mechanism to drive the functionality. It was nasty but thanks to WMI and some 3rd party PowerShell REPL that job was over. I wouldn't willingly give up Ruby much less Perl or Bash for PS. It seems like another "thumb their nose" CLR, C#, closed-source NIH proprietary lock-in tactic.

Years ago I wrote tons of jscript to silently deploy lots of software remotely, and it wasn't as slow to become "productive" at as PS.

Honestly I loved Windows XP, although I really only used it as a teenager because it was the only OS that could run Civilization III. I remember that blue control panel that neatly organized all the settings - it is astounding that it was considered more user-friendly to just make a big three-column list of every subcategory of settings.

One thing to note is that for someone who knows what they're doing, the structure of settings don't make much of a difference, because you'll find things eventually. It makes a big difference when technology-inept people like my mom have to fix problems like "how do I make the computer screen not hurt my eyes?". They just don't connect the phrase "display settings" to the concept of brightness, so navigating settings becomes a nightmare for them.

I can never find the programs one. I swear every time I open it Windows checks a rnd to see if it should be called All Programs or Programs & Features.

One can classify sw development companies into dev centric or UI centric. Microsoft is the former. Tivo, Apple ( more to apple than this though) and some others are User centric.

It refers to where the seat of power is in the company which defines strategy and envelops products. A dev centric company like Microsoft does not become User centric by hiring a UI designer..

Hence, Windows UI will always be sub par. USer centric design is very deep, not superficially changeable, and can't be simply bolted on.

Something tells me the COM-wranglers out there might quibble with the "dev-centric" label. :)

Correction: Tivo was User centric, but is now just sitting back and enjoying the patent royalties.