Beyond that, Metro is horrible when you have more than one large monitor. The UI simple doesn't scale well in that environment. It looks like 8.1 update 1 will finally be much closer to how it should have been.
It reminds me of Vista, where half the control panel UI was updated, and half wasn't, and it was just a bad mix of old/new. I don't mind a new UI. For that matter, I'm really digging Ubuntu's Unity interface, ymmv on that.
I think that Windows 7 had a really nice UI, and that metro should have been an option on top of that from the beginning. Trying to make a unifying UX for interfaces from your phone to tablet to dual-monitor desktops just doesn't work that well. You really need two options, and making the UI work for those metro apps in the desktop context makes more sense.
And the Server 2012 R2 upgrade was not free unlike Win8.1. While at it, don't forget the lack of IE11 too.
Disclaimer: MSFT employee, opinions my own.
I'm actually really confused why this is, it seems to be such an important use case. I would not be surprised if they didn't even test WS2012.
Before opening the connection, click "Show options" -> Local Resources tab -> Apply Windows key combinations.
There are a lot of things about Metro that I dislike, but killing the "don't touch the power button on a computer" idiom is one that I do like.
No it doesn't. Pressing the power button implements what the PC maker wants to implement. In many cases (especially on laptops) it's for the computer to go to sleep.
I've been out of Windows for a long time, is this something that comes up much? Even with a laptop, I'd think you mostly be suspending it by closing the lid.
Can you still use the physical power button to bring up the shutdown menu?
There are some people who like to shut down their machines, though. I think they haven't forgotten the days when a good reboot once a day was necessary to clear out cobwebs.
Oh so they still have those in Win8. I didn't miss that when I moved to Linux. Reboots for Updates is a broken concept.
On OS X it's somewhat rare for an update for require a reboot. Often they don't actually reboot the machine but just log you out, perform the update, and then log you back in.
While these updates feel like a reboot since you lose your desktop environment state, you can tell the difference if you're paying close enough attention.
Much better than ANY other version of windows ever.
Then again I'm a power user.
Example: how do you restart or shutdown your Windows 8.1 machine when you're on the desktop? Go to the start screen. Click your name, sign out, click the screen so it 'opens', click the power button, click restart or shutdown from the menu.