30 years ago, who would have thought that we would be using a mouse to help us become pro gamers, or talk to a phone which would then search through lots and lots of data to give us the answer of our question.

Hate the game, not the player. Software keeps advancing forward.
I know it is an OS for mainframes, don't know anything else about it. :)

You know, I find it hard to believe how many people love on the Start menu. The Start menu, in my experience is a clunky piece of crap that tends to disorganization and is a pain to keep organized. In XP I spent more than a few hours getting things so I could more easily access things. Win7 has been better, because I barely have to go into the Start menu. I just start searching and I can easily find anything.

The Metro interface is much easier to navigate with any input device than the Start menu. Even with a very precise mouse it got super annoying in XP when you had cascading menus and you didn't follow the path of the box precisely. Everything collapsed and you had to start all over again. In Win7 it is better only because you the whole thing does not close when you leave the box. It is still just as much work to hit one particular line and you still have the disorganized cascading folders.

In Metro, however, you have large boxes to hit. Having used Win8 since the RP came out, I can say I find it is actually far easier to navigate than the Start menu after a short (very short in my case) transition period (And yes, that is with only having a mouse and keyboard). And you can still just start typing to search apps. On top of that, it is far easier to organize and personalize than the Windows 7 Start Menu.

And yes, while mouse interface is only slightly better, keyboard interface is much, much better with Metro. Searching is still there, but on top of that, a grid is far easier to navigate with arrow keys than a list. Just think about it a second. If you have twenty items in a list you have to hit the arrow key twenty times to get to the bottom (there are other ways, of course, but let's speak assuming there aren't). With a 4x5 grid you have to hit a key (at most) 8 times. It's just far more efficient.

Edit: In regards to the mouse, let me put it another way:

When using a mouse there are essentially two modes: fast and precise. Usually you zoom around the screen with your mouse to the general area, than switch to precise mode to get the particular place you need to in that area. Precise mode is much slower than fast mode, and requires an extra step if you are not already in that area. With Metro you can just use fast mode to get where you want, 99/100 you won't need to adjust and if you do it isn't as finicky to do so. This makes metro actually more efficient for getting to programs with the mouse.

^ the Search contract is freaking awesome. I can search for everything X related directly from Start, don't have to bother with opening applications or whatever.

Playing stupid? Trying to troll again? Doesn't matter - I haven't and won't take it serious.

No XP isn't a good solution. But the majority of users voted with their wallet and stayed with the renownedly not ideal XP, instead of switching to Vista. Lesser of two evils principle.
Same might happen again, this time with Windows 7 taking the XP and Windows 8 the Vista part.

40usd for an upgrade? HOW CONVENIENT.

Only a sheep could submit to this illusion of getting a good deal.

In my experience, Win 8 consumer preview's desktop environment worked as well with a keyboard and mouse as XP and Win 7. While metro apps look a little silly on a large widescreen monitor, they also work well with a mouse and keyboard. Despite what the chorus says, this is not a tablet OS.

If you look at straight numbers, Windows 7 has surpassed XP as the windows of choice for a corporate environment. though all my contacts I've yet to find a single IT person or PC tech in the corporate setting say they will migrate to windows 8 in any form.

If Microsoft allows metro to be disabled and the start menu back then they might consider it. But in my opinion this will never take off on a corporate scale.

If windows 7 support is ever pulled pulled, we'll switch to virtual apps and serve them though what ever OS we want, with a big possibility to SLED.

They fixed the start menu for Windows 7 and there are no organization problems with it. Everything is alphabetical and most of the time I can just use the search bar. The main reason for the start menu is when you're not sure what you're looking for.

MS is removing it because they like to remove things from the UI from time to time to make sure that people think they're innovating. It takes up very little room and is useful from time to time.

Eh, Windows 8 is going to be the next Windows ME as far as I can tell. Why MS can't just leave things alone that are working is beyond me. They just got the start menu more or less completely solved with Windows 7 and now they're removing it.

Plus, Metro is probably going to suck. It's going to suck for the same sort of reasons that all those other interfaces that are all the rage now suck, they're great if you have a netbook, but completely fail if you have a large monitor. Not to mention the back end of the whole thing.

Funny, but I wasn't talking about the order the hodgepodge of folders was in, but the fact that every program installs its own folder, sometimes inside another folder for the company, though I've often seen where programs from the same company will install to company folders with different versions of the name, for instance one will have "Inc" on the end, while the other doesn't.

Beyond that, I don't know anyone who would choose to organize their folders by company if it wasn't the default (or only) option. If you do want to organize it better, you either have to type the exact folder structure of where you want it to go (if the option to change the program shortcut location is even available), or else move it afterward, which means you have to manually delete shortcuts if you uninstall the program, and either deal with the still finicky movement of items within the Start menu, or else open it in Explorer and deal with the current user/all users dichotomy that installers are divided into.

With Windows 8 the 'legacy' installers, at least, are still just as bad for annoying shortcuts, but you can move or remove shortcuts, put them in categories, whatever, very easily, without every going into Explorer or anything like, and when you uninstall it still removes the shortcuts. That is what I was talking about as far as organization and personalization. And installers for Metro programs are far better, just installing one icon to the Metro menu.

Edit: I also like how you responded to my post without really responding to any point I made, just saying "Metro's probably gonna suck!" I can tell you, it works on a large monitor. But hey, maybe try it before dissing it...

Edit 2: Also, I've been around long enough to remember when Win95 came out. A lot of people who used 3.1 did not like the Start menu. There was a lot smaller install base for 3.1, of course, so the cry wasn't as loud, but it was there...

Like I said, the problem has been fixed. The only times you need to go into the start menu are when you're not exactly sure what you're looking for.

That companies folder thing is a matter of practicality, I do something similar with my files when I download them. You need to ensure that every file is unique in it's folder and that you can find it quickly. They could just put it in a folder based on the name, but have you any idea how annoying it is when the start menu grows tall enough that it has to scroll?

People say the same thing about Ribbon. I've been burnt enough times by MS UI incompetence to not have any faith in them when it comes to things of this nature, maybe this time will be different. But, honestly, you still have people trying to say just how great Ribbon is when it's just complete crap.

Also, this is the same MS that thinks that good UI design involves hiding everything from people. Case in point extensions. MS hasn't moved on to magic numbers and such like other OSes, but they hide the extensions by default, which means that you can effectively turn a .exe into a .doc for most people by using the icon for the .doc instead of the correct one.

I used 3.0 and 3.1 and it really didn't scale very well in terms of larger numbers of applications. For those that really liked the 3.x interface there was never anything stopping people from putting their shortcuts into folders and treating them like the 3.x interface. I used it and honestly, it worked fine as long as you didn't have too many applications installed.

The interface isn't being changed because the previous one wasn't working, it's being changed because MS is once again aping the style of other people and to try and force an upgrade. The Windows 7 UI is probably going to be the Pinnacle of MS UI design until at least Windows 9 as they're once again trusting data that shouldn't be trusted.

But you're just saying the same thing I'm saying and that Microsoft has said: people don't use the Start Menu. When the redeeming feature of the interface is that you don't have to go into it anymore, there is a problem. With Metro you still can search applications in exactly the same way as in Windows 7, but you also have a more usable menu for when you do need to actually find something manually.

So i've been using the release preview and its not bad.... plays games better then 7 and has great legacy support... its played every game i tossed at it sofar, including K.I.S.S. Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child !

I'm very glad with my 7 right now.

Okay so... What if we're still using an old <cough> illegitimate version of XP? Suppose I want to go legit? How much is that going to cost me?

All you need is an original xp key thats not in use...