Diving into Windows 8, It's easy to get your Desktop Back.

• tags:
• Windows 8

I’ve head a lot of FUD regarding Windows 8 and the Metro UI. It seems people are primarily frustrated by the removal of the old start menu and the promotion of the new MetroUI as the primary interface on the desktop. I have to agree that the Metro UI being a bad choice for me as a developer or for most of the business users I work with. It doesn’t support using multiple applications side by side such as when researching and authoring, debugging, or reconciling data in different applications. I think it is a great choice if MS wants to improve accessibility for the consumer market. I disagree with people’s knee jerk reaction that Metro is the end of Windows. Windows 8 has all the capabilities of Windows 7 under the hood. The desktop interface is still there, just demoted in prominence. You can make the desktop your primary mode of work by installing the Start8 application from StarDock. As of this writing Start8 is in free beta. I strongly recommend it for Windows 8 early adopters who want to keep the desktop experience and begin exploring metro. I hope the smart people at Microsoft will recognize that they need to offer people the option of a Desktop or Metro based experience. At least as a transitional phase until the Metro UI can mature to meet the ‘needs’ of users who ‘require’ multiple windows open side by side to do their work.