So .. it’s not hard to see why Microsoft is encountering resistance from their installed Windows 7 user base that have been forced into the gaudy Start screen tiles of Windows 8 that screams color and wiggly little updates at them. What a shock to one’s senses if one had a desktop with a dreamy wallpaper background ! It’s in your face, and it’s ‘noisy’. And of course Microsoft prods its users to sign up for a Microsoft account for many of the apps – such as Mail, Skydrive, the Store. You can even sign in onto your machine with a Microsoft account (not local a password) which will then save your settings in the cloud and make your desktop, Surface tablet and Microsoft phone all look the same (does anybody have all of those?). No thanks, I think. If that account password gets lost in the clouds, or hacked, then I am toast.
As for the problem of landing on the Metro Start screen at boot-up, I actually found a remedy for that, at extremetech.com .. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/139960-how-to-shut-down-windows-8-easily-and-how-to-boot-to-the-desktop. So now I boot up directly into the desktop, the way Windows 7 did. I still don’t have a Start button and Start menu, but that’s OK since I have shortcuts on the desktop or below on the task bar for all the apps I use every day. Everything is now an ‘app’ I guess .. even the monstrous Office products Excel and Word. Which by the way, in the 2013 versions now run in the cloud as well, and allows you to store your documents in the cloud. ‘So that your files are accessible from anywhere’. Yes, OK, but not when you’re actually in the cloud flying at 30,000 ft and your airline still does not have wi-fi on board. And so it goes. Some new things are really cool, and others solve some problems – but create others.
