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Windows 8: The desktop review

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Windows 8 is the most significant operating system update Microsoft has launched since Windows 95, and the first one designed to run on such a wide range of devices. ExtremeTech has split its coverage of the operating system accordingly: I will be writing about Windows 8 on a non-touch desktop PC, while my colleague Sebastian will be reviewing Windows 8 from a tablet perspective.

To begin with, just to address the elephant in the room, there are two very distinct parts to Windows 8: The Metro interface, and the Desktop interface. The overall experience of using Windows 8 on a non-touch device if you try to use Metro and Desktop together is so different than Desktop alone that we're going to break it into two stories. This story here deals with Windows 8 on a standard, non-touch PC, applied to the same use cases as Windows XP, Vista, or 7. The Metro side of the equation will be addressed in an upcoming story.

Windows 8 -- setting the default programs to something less... Metro

To avoid Metro as much as possible, I followed these steps first (and I suggest you do the same, if you're a professional Windows user): Press the Start button on your keyboard, or left-click in the lower left-hand corner; Type "Control Panel"; Click the Control Panel icon; and navigate to and select "Default Programs".

From here, scroll to the bottom of the list, where the programs beginning with "Windows" are listed. Set Windows Media Player and Windows Photo Viewer to be the default handlers for all the types of content they support. I recommend doing this before you install other software; it'll save you the headache of fighting with the Metro version of these applications. You'll also wwant a different PDF reader.

Once you've changed those defaults and grabbed the browser, email program, and address book (if any) of your choice, congratulations. You're ready to explore what Windows 8 has to offer. And as long as we're talking about the Desktop, that's a good thing.

The Start screen

The Start Screen is the one Metro function I'm going to discuss in this section, as it's also the only Metro (also known as Windows 8-style) app you can't get away from without installing a third-party application. There are programs that duplicate the functionality of the old Start menu, if you're interested in them, and Microsoft included a right-click option in the bottom-left hot corner that gives easy access to some of the more common Start Menu tasks.

I expected to hate the new Start screen. I don't — but that's partly a function of having used PCs for a very long time and knowing the names of the programs that I want to run. Finding the particular program you're looking for if you don't know the name can be frustrating, especially if it's an application that drops a number of links in what used to be a hierarchical Start Menu.

TightVNC icons

Quick — pick the right TightVNC icon!

One of the downsides to Windows 8's flattened hierarchy is that it aggregates icons to the point that they lose their distinctiveness. The old Start menu hierarchy provided a short list of frequently used programs, followed by an alphabetical list of folders and icons inside of these. As long as I remember that I own a Seagate product, I can find the associated program to access it. Metro doesn't work that way.

Seagate search results

Rather, I have to search for BlackArmor to find the relevant launch utility. This is problematic, even with the Start menu, but it doesn't become infuriating until we talk about the other Metro apps (more on that in another article). For those of you who want the Start menu back, there's an app called Classic Shell that returns it, and gives you access to a huge range of configurable options.

Next page: Windows 8's improvements…