Why so much people hate windows 8.x

[Pawelk198604]

I use it and do not complain, and this system was not pre-installed alo bought it, by the way, without spending a single penny

Although actually first bought and then got financing from European funds.

I have a moderate disability due to Asperger's and several other diseases, as a person with a disability can use the Polish state fund the also have money from European Social Fund, for people with disabilities.

[Karriz]

Well, personally I don't see the point of having horizontally scrolling full-screen menus when working with mouse and keyboard. It's just a massive waste of screen space, and everything else scrolls vertically which is more logical with mouse wheel. I don't hate Windows 8, it's fast and has some improvements on the desktop side.

Hopefully 8.2 will have a proper start menu, but maybe it won't be until Windows 9.

[Pawelk198604]

Well, personally I don't see the point of having horizontally scrolling full-screen menus when working with mouse and keyboard. It's just a massive waste of screen space, and everything else scrolls vertically which is more logical with mouse wheel. I don't hate Windows 8, it's fast and has some improvements on the desktop side.

Hopefully 8.2 will have a proper start menu, but maybe it won't be until Windows 9.

It's would be cool to have them both, start screen and start menu :-)

[peadar1987]

Under the bonnet, it seems a very good system, fast, stable, and secure (by microsoft standards!), it's the complete change of the UI for seemingly no reason that really annoyed me. I spent the first week of using it (it came preinstalled on my university laptop) changing all of the settings to make it look and feel as much like Windows 7 as I could get it. Now I actually quite like it.

[Tommygun]

I thought it had a preset setting that could make the layout look like the traditional classic windows?

Maybe I'm confusing some of the down loadable classic themes by third parties.

[andrewas]

What we wanted was the usual incremental improvements over Windows 7, with an added UI for touchscreen devices, so that people with touchscreen laptops or tablets could benefit while those on conventional computers would use the older UI. What we got was a mandatory touchscreen UI, whether or not you had a touchscreen. You could get around it, but you had no start button, and default file associations would launch metro apps and drag you back to the new UI, and it took a significant amount of work to make it work like an older computer.

This is a major pain considering that many users learn how to use a computer by rote - they don't "open word", they "click on the start menu, click on "microsoft office", click on "microsoft word" - since these users don't understand the system they use, it's very hard for them to adapt to a new one without help. Where you and I would see the lackof a start button and start experimenting to discover how the new UI works, they panic. Retraining these people is expensive in an enterprise setting, and frustrating in a home setting.

[Nibb31]

The reason people hate Windows 8 is because of the badly thought-out UI paradigm. For some reason, and going against basic common sense, Microsoft thought that PCs were going overwelmingly switch to touch screens. Anybody who has worked in the computer industry would have been told them that corporations were not going to replace all their PC screens overnight just to satisfy their whim, and that touch screens on desktop PCs only hinder productivity.

Most people use PCs for Word, Excel, email, and web based stuff. Taking your hands of the keyboard and raising them up and bending over to reach your screen is not natural. The bread and butter of Windows is corporate IT, and corporations had no use for a touch-based user interface, so they massively stuck with Windows 7.

As for consumers, Microsoft failed to realize that most people aren't computer geeks. They want the same user experience on their home PCs as on their work PCs, and they also have the same habits and muscle-memory acquired from nearly 20 years of using the Start menu (since Windows 95). Folks like my parents or grandparents simply don't get all this stuff about moving the mouse to a corner to open the "charms" menu?

And then their is the execution of the Start screen interface, with all sorts of hidden gestures that you have to memorize and which conflict with other tasks (how many times have you brought up the Charms menu when you trying to reach the scrollbar?) and a totally different way of switching tasks or closing apps whether they are run from the desktop or from the start screen. Users shouldn't have to care how a program was launched or what sort of interface they are using. All users need to concentrate on is the task that they are trying to perform.

Windows 8 is like you are running two different computers at the same time and it keeps changing the controls for you. Transpose that sort of behavior to a car (inverting controls, moving them around, or suddenly replacing the steering wheel with a joystick depending on the type of road you're on) and it would be a disaster. The whole experience is utterly confusing for most users, and for those that have adapted to it, it requires constant metal gymnastics just to remember how to close an app or to access the settings, which gets in the way of concentrating on the task you are actually doing.

[montyben101]

Put simply if you don't have a touchscreen it's harder to use and is doesn't really make sense. I hate touchscreens with a passion.

[magnemoe]

Under the bonnet, it seems a very good system, fast, stable, and secure (by microsoft standards!), it's the complete change of the UI for seemingly no reason that really annoyed me. I spent the first week of using it (it came preinstalled on my university laptop) changing all of the settings to make it look and feel as much like Windows 7 as I could get it. Now I actually quite like it.

Yes, the UI is not suitable for keyboard and mouse, add that it lack features and is not designed for Microsoft own programs like office and sql server designed for windows 8.

In short if you install the newest sql server or office on windows 8 the start screen fills up with all sort of utility and legacy programs who is hidden under sub-folders in the start menu.

Situation is far worse for the majority of users who has used a decade to get used to the system introduced in windows 95 and pretty much perfected in windows 7 and has to learn a new system just because Microsoft designers thought it was cool.

Not talking about the totaly clueless people here but the one who manage everyday tasks well but don't understand how thing works under the hood.

[Camacha]

I think that if people got over it that 8.x is simply different and gave it a chance, they would probably rather like it. Instead, people encounter something they are not used and cannot accept that it might actually be different. If you go into it with that attitude, it will remain a wonky version of 7. If you judge it on its own merits, it is actually a pretty good OS. If anything is at fault, it is that Microsoft did not prepare an extremely conservative public enough to accept and understand the new ways of doing things. People do not like change at all, even if it is for the better, and especially so with the digibetic audience that is the Windows crowd.

Of course, Microsoft tried a couple of new ideas and as with all new things, some elements are more successful than others. That means you have to sharpen and improve them, but instead it seems that 9 is going to undo most of the elements that made 8 what it is. I think that is a shame, as it is much more a question of politics and perception than intrinsic quality. I certainly needed some tweaking in certain areas, that does not mean the ideas were bad.

I can honestly say that Windows 8 is the best OS I ever used. I had to fight with it for about and hour and a half, after that my distaste melted away.

[Eric S]

The idea of Windows 8 was to unify the mouse driven UI with the touch driven UI. In Windows 8, this was a royal pain, because the mouse driven UI wasn't just in the back seat, it was practically stuffed into the trunk. It wouldn't have been a very good mouse-driven UI, but what made it even worse was that it threw out most of the consumer's experience with the mouse driven UI of previous versions of Windows. As someone that was used to the Win Mouse UI (all the way back to Win 3.0) and Android touchscreen operations, the Win 8.0 UI threw me for a loop far more than any "upgrade" should have, and didn't seem to offer anything new that I actually wanted.

Windows 8.1 gave back much of the functionality mouse users were used to though in ways that we weren't used to, but still not all of it, and dragging the mouse off the edge of the screen to scroll a window isn't nearly as comfortable to me. Hopefully Win 9 will be closer to a UI where neither touch nor mouse are second class citizens.

I think that if people got over it that 8.x is simply different and gave it a chance, they would probably rather like it.

If you're on a tablet, I'll agree, and maybe a touchscreen laptop, but a desktop is a different matter. Touchscreen monitors are rare and bad ergonomics for long periods of interaction if mounted vertically as opposed to flat horizontally, and Win 8.0's mouse UI is a massive step backwards without offering any real advantages.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Eric S

[Nibb31]

I think that if people got over it that 8.x is simply different and gave it a chance, they would probably rather like it. Instead, people encounter something they are not used and cannot accept that it might actually be different.

Resistance to change is one thing, and it certainly is part of the general rejection of Windows 8. When you are addressing billions of users, you have to take that into account. The role of an OS is to make things easier for people, not harder. The ideal OS is one that is transparent to users, that gets you directly where you want to be. Adding an extra effort to force people to transition to a new system that offers no clear advantage other than being different and new, does not make things easier.

Other that being "different and new", exactly what problem does the Metro UI solve that couldn't be solved with the classic UI, with clearly labeled buttons and widely accepted controls. What is the advantage over the classic desktop paradigm for a desktop PC?

Much of the criticism is justified. Android, iOS, MacOS, and the various brands of Linux are also different, yet you don't see the widespread rejection of them that you see for Windows 8. The problem isn't that Windows 8 is different. The problem is that it is poorly designed and poorly implemented.

Of course, Microsoft tried a couple of new ideas and as with all new things, some elements are more successful than others. That means you have to sharpen and improve them, but instead it seems that 9 is going to undo most of the elements that made 8 what it is. I think that is a shame, as it is much more a question of politics and perception than intrinsic quality. I certainly needed some tweaking in certain areas, that does not mean the ideas were bad.

At one point, when people stop upgrading to stay with Windows 7 or start looking at other alternatives like Ubuntu or MacOS, especially corporations and their million-dollar maintenance contracts, it probably means that you goofed up. At that point, your only alternative is to make what the customers want. And it turns out that nobody wants touch screens on a desktop PC. Even touch screen laptops are a hard sell.

I can honestly say that Windows 8 is the best OS I ever used. I had to fight with it for about and hour and a half, after that my distaste melted away.

It might be good if you have a touch screen and that all you do is use it as a tablet, for gaming, casual browsing, or for content consumption, but for any serious work, with the desktop, mouse, and keyboard, the touch UI constantly gets in the way.

It has fundamental design flaws that simply don't make sense. The charms menu is totally illogical and the corner gestures simply get in the way when you are using a mouse, to the point where you inevitably bring up the Charms when trying to reach for the close button or try to scroll down. Why is "Share" in that charms menu, but not "Save"? Why did they get rid of simple "Close" buttons to close apps? (they finally put them back in 8.1) Why are the some settings in the old Control Panel while others were moved to the Charms Settings? Mouse usage is mostly unpredictable, with the scroll button sometimes scrolling horizontally and sometimes vertically, depending on where it is hovering. How is that a good design?

Those, and many other critics about it, are due to an objectively bad design, not due to resistance to change. They are argumented and documented flaws. The whole thing is schizophrenic at best, and if you use the desktop at all, while you think that you have adapted to the new UI, your brain is inevitably switching back and forward between the two UI paradigms.

[jfull]

Because its built for tablets and other touchscreen devices, and offers no advantages over windows 7 for desktops and laptops with traditional input devices.

The interface is also terribly unintuitive if you're using a keyboard and mouse, as is the bizarre separation of applications in the two interface modes.

[Camacha]

I really do not want to turn this into an internet trench war, so I am going to respond in a somewhat concise manner. I just hope that people are willing to forget what they assumed or have been told, really try to approach it as a new way of doing things instead of as a kind of weird Windows 7.1, work through the unfamiliarity and form an honest opinion for themselves. If they still think it is rubbish, fair game, it is not for you I have been doing some real production with it, putting it through its paces, and I feel it is really a great tool. Not the only tool to do the job, not a perfect tool for sure, but really pretty good nonetheless.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Camacha

[jwenting]

it's simple: haters will be haters.

99% of the people claiming they "hate Windows 8" have never used it, and get all their "knowledge" about it from other people who never used Windows 8 but claim to "hate" it from seeing pictures of it.

I know quite a few...

Like all the screams about there being no more desktop, which are flat out nonsense. Or that you only have those big tiles as a means to start things. Again, nonsense.

For most all users, 99% of the time Windows 8 works no different from Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP. You just click icons on your screen to start applications, and that's it.

[Nuke]

ive mostly been holding off, for no other reason than the fact that i am quite comfy with 7. im going to do a new pc build next month sometime and so will likely use win8 as its os. if i dont like it, i can nuke it from orbit and install win7.

ive known for a long time that ms seldom does little more than a few major changes to its products each version. win 8 appears to be a spit and polish upgrade (windows 7 was pretty much a 'make vista suck less' release that turned out to be a pretty solid os). gives ms a chance to make it look pretty, and to try new interfaces, and shoehorn in a horrible app store (and possibly rename all the icons in the control panel again). im more interested in the refinements of its internals rather its outward appearance. id be happy with the win2k interface if the guts of the os were more up to date. i always tend to use as little of the os as possible anyway, disabling as many features as i can.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Nuke

[SelectHalfling0]

It's different from windows 7, and you need a 100 dollar extra touchscreen for it to work easily. I fortunately bought the touchscreen for my computer, and I am fine with it.

[FenrirWolf]

They hate it because it did kinda suck at first.

But now Windows 8.1 is the best OS Microsoft has ever released and hating it is silly.

[peadar1987]

(how many times have you brought up the Charms menu when you trying to reach the scrollbar?)

Oh god, this!

Want to close an app in a hurry, move mouse to top right to click on the "x". *&%^£$& CHARMS POP OUT AND COVER THE X!!!

[Javster]

You know you can default it so it starts at the desktop, right?

[Eric S]

it's simple: haters will be haters.

99% of the people claiming they "hate Windows 8" have never used it, and get all their "knowledge" about it from other people who never used Windows 8 but claim to "hate" it from seeing pictures of it.

Which says nothing about any legitimate complaints.

Like all the screams about there being no more desktop, which are flat out nonsense. Or that you only have those big tiles as a means to start things. Again, nonsense.

Again, shooting down issues that no one has raised here.

For most all users, 99% of the time Windows 8 works no different from Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP. You just click icons on your screen to start applications, and that's it.

I'll start off by saying that I like the under-the-hood improvements of Win 8, and I like the live tile stuff as well.

As for the issues I have, let me break this down into two categories.

First, the desktop issues. The desktop lost its start button because Microsoft wanted to push us into the Modern UI, which I don't think was a reasonable decision. Unless you took the tour, you didn't even know how to pull up the charms so that you could do anything other than run programs on the desktop or the taskbar once you were on the desktop. Seriously, if you didn't know how to pull up the charms and were looking at the desktop in 8.0, you'd have no clue how to as much as turn the computer off. This led to a lot of bad impressions. They changed the way things worked on the desktop and just expected us to follow along, without telling us how to follow along. Hence the desktop felt rather neutered.

Second, the Modern UI issues. The Modern UI treated mouse users as a second class citizen, almost all of our 25 years of experience thrown out the window, replaced in favor of faking touchscreen gestures. It felt clunky, and scrolling with a mouse wasn't very smooth on the one non-touchscreen laptop I use that had Win 8.0 for a while. There wasn't much in the way of clues as to how use the new mouse functionality unless you ran the tutorial, and that lack of clues was frustrating.

What did we gain for all of this? Live tiles, and in order to use those, we have to use the UI that treated us as second class citizens.

So basically, a user with experience on earlier versions of windows had the choice of running a neutered version of what we knew that gained us nothing, or something new that our experience didn't apply to and wasn't exactly friendly on non-touch computers, which if you're upgrading an existing computer, was just about all of them. On top of that, the new UI didn't let us stack windows like we're used to.

Win 8.0 was the New Coke of the computer industry. Not necessarily a bad idea but chasing a new market all the while disregarding the existing one.

Win 8.1 helped a lot, including adding a good bit of mouse-driven functionality to the Modern UI, but it was still stuff that we had to go looking for. Then again, it at least popped up a few messages telling us where to look for that functionality the first time we fired it up. Those same messages would have made our first experiences with Win 8.0 a little less frustrating.

You know you can default it so it starts at the desktop, right?

You can now, but Win 8 made a lot of bad first impressions long before this option was added.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Eric S

[Javster]

You can now, but Win 8 made a lot of bad first impressions long before this option was added.

I didn't know that wasn't in the original package.

Also, I had to Google how to turn off my computer in Windows 8 to find out.

[peadar1987]

I didn't know that wasn't in the original package.

Also, I had to Google how to turn off my computer in Windows 8 to find out.

Me too :S

I'd had the thing about 4 weeks at this stage, and had just been "sleeping" it by flipping down the screen (which, to be fair, Windows 8 does very well, it's really quick to fire up again after sleeping) when I realised the thing hadn't been properly shut down since I got it.

[DaveofDefeat]

I hate change.

[dharak1]

My main problem is the touchscreen UI. My aunt has an all in one desktop with windows 8 and I've used it a bit and my first thought was how fast your arm would get tired. I'm not sure how it works with dual or triple screen configurations but I could imagine not very well. Touchscreens are good for movile devices and I can get behind the Surface 2 but they just don't work for desktops. If my 6 monitors were all touchscreen I would cry for two reasons. 1. I would be broke because half of my screens are old 4:3 low res monitors and replacing them with 1000 dollar touchscreen monitors would be absurdly expensive. And 2. It would be annoying going from screen to screen by hand and actively having to move my hand 5 feet to do something else. I like turning my head 120 degrees to look at something else but not having to move my hand and probably my body over there.