Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

What makes Windows 8 such a disaster? Simple--it's an interface designed for a smartphone or a tablet, not for a PC. Here's what that means. When you power on your PC, what you get instead of a normal Windows desktop is a brightly colored screen with a bunch of "tiles", most of which are advertisements for "apps" that you have little or no use for. There's no start button, no taskbar, no tools, no menus, no links to anything except the useless "apps". It's a huge step backward to the pre-Windows days of computing. It turns out that if you hover your mouse pointer over certain parts of the screen, various cryptic flyout symbols (aka "Charms"), will appear in lieu of easily understood menus. If you click on these symbols (and don't let your pointer slip off of them or they disappear and you have to go fishing for them again) you're taken into a confusing maze of convoluted, unintuitive options that substitute for normal Windows functions and must be explored sequentially, screen after screen. No more lists or icons that allow you to see at a glance what's in a given folder. And if you want to go to a particular file or folder, you better remember it's name--EXACTLY. Because the only way to find it is to go to the SEARCH box (if you can wrestle it away from the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't "Charms" menu). These are just some of the horrible design features that have been driving Windows 8/8.1 users crazy since this trainwreck's release. Apparently, some genius at Microsoft thought that Windows 8 should mimic a phone interface. Phone interfaces are designed the way they are because of their size--a fraction of that of a typical computer screen. There simply isn't room for all the useful and practical features that have evolved naturally on desktop and laptop operating systems, so they're buried in underlying layers accessed by swiping and tapping. It's a great system for a pocket-sized touch screen device, but ridiculous and counterproductive when imposed on a full-sized desktop or laptop. The sad, trying-to-be-trendy who defend or promote this mess as being somehow new and innovative are too slow or clueless to recognize that it's just a smartphone/small-tablet interface forced into a shotgun wedding with a hardware platform where it doesn't belong. Microsoft could fix this mess in a day by restoring the normal Windows tools such as menus, toolbars, files, and, most importantly, the start menu and functioning desktop that comprise the foundation of the Windows operating system. So far all they've done is to release a pseudo-upgrade (8.1) that suggests that the start menu is back when in reality all it does is give users a start button--just the icon--that allows you to toggle back and forth between the godawful "Metro" screen and a completely empty "desktop". It's worse than useless. The only way to make Window 8/8.1 useable is to buy a third-party add-on program from one of the opportunistic vendors who did what Microsoft refuses to do--restore the simple basic functions that comprise the core of the Windows operating system. Windows 8 has been a disaster from day one, but instead of moving immediately to address their horrendous design mistakes, Microsoft's only response has been to fire Steven Sinofsky and Steve Ballmer, the two Microsoft execs responsible for this fiasco, and to cancel support for XP to try to force consumers to buy Windows 8/8.1. It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft even bothers to continue to "support" 8 a year from now, or if they simply take their customers' money and run on to Windows 9, which has already been rushed into development and is slated for release in early 2015. -OCT 2014 UPDATE- In what appears to be an attempt to distance themselves as far as possible from the Windows 8 disaster, Microsoft has announced that the next version of Windows will be dubbed "Windows 10", instead of the logical and accurate "Windows 9". Anything to confuse their customers. It's supposed to be cross-platform with optional settings for various "ecosystems" (geekidiot talk for devices--PCs, tablets, phones) instead of the mish-mash conglomeration of unusable features that was Windows 8/8.1. It's still a year away. -FEB 2015 UPDATE- FINALLY, there's a sliver of light at the end of the deep dark Windows 8/8.1 tunnel. Previews of Windows 10 have been released and if Microsoft keeps to the presented iteration, the Start Menu will be back, along with a functioning desktop. The horrible "Metro" interface will still be there for anyone who wants to pretend their PC is some kind of portable device and reach across their desk to dirty up their monitors and knock them off balance by punching away with their fingers. But it'll be an option, not the default, and even it will now open in a conventional window instead of obliterating everything else on the screen with its useless "app" store. And, praise the Lord, the horribly annoying and obstructive Windows 8 "Charms" that pop out and get in the way anytime your pointer gets too close to the screen edge will be gone--banished forever to the scrap-heap of really, really bad design ideas. Release date for W10 has been pushed back yet again until late fall, so there's still time for Microsoft to come up with some toxic surprises for the shell-shocked Windows faithful. Hopefully, they'll get it right this time.