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Uncategorized Tuesday, August 7th 2012 at 12:05 pm

Report: Windows 8 Prevents Booting Straight to Desktop

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If you didn’t like the user interface style formerly known as Metro, a new report holds some bad news: With Windows 8, Microsoft will be preventing users from booting straight to the desktop. If true, that means users will have to deal with the tiled Metro UI before they can access a more familiar desktop environment.

The report, over on ZDNet, claims that if Windows 8 users wish to access a more familiar desktop environment — start menu, taskbar, desktop icons — they’ll have to boot into the Windows 8 tiled Metro UI, then access the more standard PC desktop environment through the use of what could be considered a desktop “app.” ZDNet claims they have confirmed this gloomy news with Rafael Rivera, coauthor of an upcoming book, Windows 8 Secrets. If a user wishes to boot to the desktop in Windows 8 without having to manually pass through the tiled UI, currently, Microsoft isn’t offering a way. Of course, this simply means that the development scene will take matters into their own hands and spruce up someone else’s product.

With Windows 8 test builds, users could create a shortcut that launched the desktop, and could then schedule that shortcut to activate upon the computer’s boot. So, it’s a little roundabout, and users would still have to pass through the tiled, tablet-like UI, but they wouldn’t have to physically interact with their computer in order to boot to a preferred interface. If that’s a little too complex for casual users, there’s already free software available that will add a Start Menu back to the Windows 8 taskbar, offered up by Stardock, the guys who not only make Sins of a Solar Empire, but various software kits to help users customize their operating system’s interface.

Windows 8 is officially launching on October 26, only two months away, so hopefully Microsoft will come to their senses and provide a native feature that allows users to automatically bypass the tiled interface and head straight to the desktop.

(via ZDNet)

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  • josh w

    It’s an app-based OS, now. It’s not a desktop-based OS. It has an app store and everything. They’re trying to be like a really high quality phone UI on your computer.

    But then I’ve had it for a couple of months and rarely leave the desktop to go back into their new menu, so I dunno. It’s beautiful and all, and its video viewer is really pretty. But I already have an XBox 360 that does all that, and frankly, it does it as well or better than Windows 8.

  • Anonymous

    Guess I will be skipping it like I skipped Vista.

  • http://www.facebook.com/HappyFuel Rhys Nottellin

    Somewhere in the tech industry there’s a really popular guy who keeps telling programmers, engineers, and designers, “You know what people want in a device? Less freedom.”

    For some reason they keep listening.

  • ForceCloseIt

    Classic Shell boots straight to the desktop.

  • Jack Bond

    This is the first time I have vehemently wanted to not “up”grade my OS.

  • Hannah

    eeeeeeeermmm, I’ma stick with Windows 7 for the time being..

  • Mellowhead

    Apple.

  • Asreal

    I can at least understand why they’ve done this; if they want people to use their new system then they aren’t gonna make it something that you have to go into yourself – that’s the whole idea!

    Apple are well known for making these sweeping changes (remember the uproar when they ditched the floppy disk drive anyone? ^_^)

  • Etheral

    Oh, nooooo!
    I have to press a button to get to the desktop?
     OHHH NOOOOOO.
    Complainers everywhere.