17 years .. not a bad run for a Start Menu

So i've had the latest Windows 8 release on my laptop for about 2 weeks now .. perhaps longer. I've come directly from Mac OSX and was determined to show that I could work as efficiently and effectively on Windows as I could on the Mac.

Sorry, but I can't.

For those of you who don't know (or who have a normal job), Windows 8 is Microsoft's latest and greatest operating system - one which builds on the success of such noble predecessors as Windows 3.1 and Windows 7. And, given the underwhelming releases which were Windows 98, Windows Me (remember that?) and Windows Vista, I was pleasantly surprised to see some radical changes.



The first thing everyone will notice is the 'tiled' UI which seems to mimic a new version of the iPhone UI. Only some of the tiles seem to be moving, and there are no visual cues to help me understand what to do if i'm not particularly interested in what I can see on the screen. Start menu? No - gone. System tray? No - gone. Help menu? No - can't see one.

After a few hours of playing, punctuated by a frustrating period where I couldn't find out how to power the thing down, I managed to find enough right-click and 'put my mouse here' shortcuts to allow me to begin working. And over the next week or so (and with the genius suggestion from one of my colleagues that if you just start typing, it'll search for what you've typed) i've begun my journey of being productive with Windows 8.

And although it gets better, it just gets in the way - that's not what an operating system in 2012 should do. I spend no time whatsoever in the useless, dysfunctional 'metro' UI with its anaemic featureset and tacky 'look at me' tiles. No - I go straight for the traditional Windows desktop which you'll find lurking under every Win8 installation. From there I have set up my apps at the bottom which I frequently use - Outlook, Excel, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, etc. and I just click on them and get on with my job. So what, really, am I getting out of Windows 8 which I didn't get from Windows 7?

Very little really - it seems a bit quicker. But that's really all I can tell you. The rest is just additional pain trying to do things which should be easier.

Take the process of adding a printer, for example. With a Mac (and believe me, i've tried not to fill this post with Mac-loving stuff) you go to 'Control Panel', click the 'Printers' icon, click '+' and immediately (and I mean immediately) a list of all the local Bonjour printers appears for you to select.

I tried to add a printer on Windows 8 last week. I found the 'Add Printer' button pretty quickly which I was pleased with. But then it took me to the 'new' UI with its clean lines and simple interface and I knew that it was doomed to failure. The dialog said: searching. And it continued to say: searching for the next 2 minutes. Nothing appeared, and there was no cancel button. Temptingly, behind it, there looked to be a plethora of options & buttons, but none were accessible - whatever happened to the little 'do it myself' button at the bottom of the add printer dialog where you and the computer could work together to find the printer? Gone .. like much else in the metro UI.

After a while, I hit 'Esc' and it revealed the buttons underneath. No magic button, so I gave up. Another point deducted - very frustrating.

There's a simple message here - i'm sure that Win8 will be applauded by gamers because it'll achieve 2 more FPS in their favourite game. But is that really the OS or the 3D libraries that have improved? And i'm sure the Mac-haters will point out how it is more widely compatible than ever before and makes a valiant attempt to converge a UI across multiple devices. But I don't care - I just want to run my applications, print, communicate, surf and have my data preserved, searchable and backed up appropriately. And I need the OS to get out of my way and facilitate all this whilst looking after my best interests.

Why, in this day and age does an OS begin shutting down a PC and then tell me cryptically that an application called 'notepad' cancelled the shutdown? I had written two words in notepad during a phone call and had forgotten to close the app! Just get on with saving my data and shutting down - is it really that difficult to give apps a temp storage area to save their work in during shutdown? Especially for those apps which are bundled with the OS?

Try it if you like, but the best OS's are now not produced by Microsoft.

If you're reading this and live in Redmond, i'll give you a strategy clue: Numbers is to Excel what a ZX80 is to an iPhone. You have a greater headstart here - don't blow it.