Wolverton: Windows 8's awkward interface makes it one for PC users to avoid

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Jyll L. Stuart, president of Veracity Technologies, works on migrating an app that currently runs on Windows Tablet to run on Windows 8 Azure Cloud, during a Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Workshop at the Kurz Purdue Technology Center, in West Lafayette, Ind., on Friday, Oct. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Journal & Courier, Brent Drinkut)

As a PC user, I hate -- a word I use sparingly -- the new interface that is the centerpiece of Windows 8.

With the new version of its flagship operating system, due out Friday, Microsoft has replaced its tried-and-true desktop interface with what it called until recently the Metro interface. Instead of a start button, taskbar and windows filled with applications and folders, Metro features a screen full of program "tiles" and applications that run full-screen.

While I think this interface has a lot of promise for tablets, on a traditional desktop or laptop computer, or even on a newer notebook sporting a touch screen, it's clunky and unintuitive. Metro often feels like a work in progress, because seemingly obvious features are unavailable. And worst of all, Metro makes it much harder than before to do everyday tasks and real work on your computer.

Take the idea of viewing multiple applications on your screen, a core feature of Windows since even before Windows 95. You can't do it in the Metro interface.

Oh, sure, you can split the screen between two -- and only two -- open applications. But this feature, called Snap, is all but worthless.

Microsoft only allows the screen to be split vertically by a predesignated ratio. Supposedly, one application gets a third of the screen and the other two-thirds. Users can't change that ratio so that, say, each application gets half. Nor can they arrange the apps so that one is

on top of the other, rather than having them side by side.

What's worse is that, at least on my computer, one-third of the screen was grossly overstating the amount of screen space devoted to the smaller application area; it actually was given less than a fifth of the screen space. Thanks to that, the text on Web pages was either so small as to be unreadable or -- if you zoomed in -- displayed so that you had to constantly scroll left and right to view a whole page.

But you don't just lose actual windows with Windows 8's Metro interface. You also typically lose the standard menu bar long used to interact with and control Windows applications. In its place, you have controls that are accessible only if you know where to swipe or point your mouse. Because the placement of these controls is haphazard and inconsistent, you'll find yourself guessing the location of commands you formerly found easily.

If you want to add an account to the Mail app, for example, you have to bring up what Microsoft calls the "charm bar" and tap on settings. If you want to move a message into a particular folder, you can't drag and drop it; instead, you have to swipe from the top or bottom of the screen, tap on the "move" command, and then tap on a folder.

Thanks in part to these pared-down and hidden controls, the apps that run under Metro often feel like kid versions of older desktop programs. This difference is most notable with the Metro version of Internet Explorer.

Just as Metro doesn't support windowed applications, Metro Internet Explorer doesn't support tabbed browser windows. You can have multiple Web pages open at once, but to view them or switch directly to particular pages, you have to swipe from the top of the screen to get a view of the thumbnails of your open pages.

If you're like me and you've come to depend on tabbed browsing to manage multiple open pages, it's disorienting to not be able to see your open pages and frustrating to have to go through an extra step to access them.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Metro applications in general, you'll find lots missing. At least right now, there's no Photoshop, no Quicken, no iTunes and no Firefox. So, if you use those and other applications, you'll end up spending lots of time in Windows 8's version of the traditional Windows desktop.

That would be OK if you could just boot directly to that desktop. But Microsoft won't allow you to do so; instead, everyone has to use the Metro start screen and will find themselves constantly switching back and forth to the old desktop.

Metro is not all bad for PC users; there are some things I do like about it. One great feature is that on the Metro start screen, you can search for an app by simply typing its name, no need to click on a search bar or a start button.

Another interesting feature is that the application tiles on the start screen act like widgets, displaying up-to-date information, which makes them more useful than the old static program icons.

But for PC users, these types of benefits are far outweighed by the regular frustrations of using Metro. If you want to use Windows 8 on a tablet, it's well made for that purpose. But I'd avoid it on a PC.

Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285 or twolverton@mercurynews.com. Follow him at www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton or Twitter.com/troywolv.

What: Microsoft Windows 8
Likes: Ability to search for apps from start screen just by typing; widget-like app tiles, updated appearance
Dislikes: No ability to view multiple app windows at one time; menu bar replaced with inconsistent controls; no way to circumvent Metro at startup; relatively few Metro apps
Web: www.windows.com

Source: http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_21823707/wolverton-review-microsoft-windows-8-awkward-interface-pc-users-avoid?source=rss_viewed

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