Start 8 makes all the difference for me

I guess we'll never know for sure Bob, but I wonder if the lack of something like Start 8 was a contributing factor to his firing. I guess the first one of us who finds out can let the others know.

If you read about Windows 8 RT sales it's not going well. I thought they would do a bit better as they did add something of value there (Office.) But from my view that's not why folk buy a PC today.

I could be wrong but the blurb I read was that they left "on a high note." That is, the product shipped and it was time to move on.

-> I think Windows 9 is going to be great.
Bob

The Surface RT looks like a good tablet, but it's way overpriced and there are Office-like apps for Androids. Heck, I can open .DOCX files on my Kindle Fire. Maybe the full featured Surface will do better, but for that kind of bucks you can buy iPads, EeePCs, and other good alternatives. I hate to say it, but I think MS is hurting without Gates as CEO.

RT appears to stand for Restricted Tablet.

I only know one person who bought it and they returned it after they discovered the only way to load apps is from the Microsoft Store. They didn't know that and that decision means they shut out every developer that doesn't want to play along with the MSFT rules.

No developer in my circles is looking at 8 RT. The list of reasons is not that long but MSFT seems to be playing hard ball these round. I think it may take a while for them to catch on but eventually they figure it out.
Bob

I just downloaded it and will test it. $5 isn't expensive for one individual, but when you start looking at businesses or classrooms, free could make a difference.

Now that I have an almost usable Windows 8 system, I started looking for games. They're not here, no place in the Control Panel to add them, and I didn't see them in the Windows store either. I even tried running Spider Solitaire from Windows 7, but that doesn't work either.
What's the answer to the missing games?

I went to the Store tile on the start screen and there are over 1700 FREE games to download from the Windows Store. Solitaire, Sodoku, and others are there in a variety of flavors...

I went to the app store. I'd read about a solitaire suite, and in fact found it when I did a search from microsoft.com. However when I went to the app store, I got a plethera of screens, none of which had solitaire suite, and no place there to search. I went through it several times with no luck, so then I saw a few similar games and tried clicking on them. It didn't want to download them, it wanted to install them, so I said OK. But then it sent me on a wild goose chase to look for an email that never arrived. I repeated this process with several different games, but never got the first email. Finally after about a dozen attempts it said "sorry, something has happened and we can't send you an email". I've gone back several times but still no soap. If you ask me they should change the name from app store to crap store!

and now I wonder why I ever used the start button. I clicked on the box to make the control panel a desktop shortcut/Icon and when I install applications I created shortcuts on the desktop and the taskbar. I also created a shutdown shortcut on my desktop by enter the shutdown command.

cluttering my desktop with tiles so why ruin a great looking personalized wallpaper with garbage everywhere?

When you need to launch another program in multi-tasking, a start button allows you to just do it, whereas you got to go back to start screen in W8 to access a tile - yech! And frankly, for me, finding a program in a tile on a big screen monitor is a lot slower than finding it in a start menu - eyes got to roam over the whole screen vs. bottom left corner.

Those are just some of the reasons why 8 will never become my client OS on laptops and desktops. 8 Pro is ok as a server OS in domains (and cheap too while MS is still discounting the upgrade!).