MS Blocks Ability in Windows 8

[Tinman57]

Microsoft said to block ability to boot straight to desktop in Windows 8

Leaked builds of Microsoft's Windows 8 are providing more clues as to what
kinds of user behaviors will and won't be permitted.

One of those tweaks is the decision to block users from setting up their
Windows 8 machines to boot straight to the Desktop, circumventing the tiled
Start screen, formerly known as the Metro screen.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-said-to-block-ability-to-boot-straight-to-desktop-in-windows-8-7000002219

[TaoPhoenix]

I'm dyin' to see how THAT pans out in the long run! 

[Josh]

This is from August and there are ways to boot straight to desktop...

[TaoPhoenix]

This is from August and there are ways to boot straight to desktop...

Thanks for the update! Nothin' like good ol' 4+ month old news!

[Stoic Joker]

I'm still trying to fathom the logic in skipping directly to a Start Button-less desktop just to have to go back to the thing you bypassed to get what you wanted. Are people really that enamored with their wallpaper?

Place shortcut to preferred desktop application(s) on Start Screen, Boot, Click/Touch, Done ... Why that so hard?

I should run down to the local tire store and pitch a fit because they have no steel banded wooden rims for my pickup...just to see if anyone there has enough sense to laugh at me.

[wraith808]

I'm still trying to fathom the logic in skipping directly to a Start Button-less desktop just to have to go back to the thing you bypassed to get what you wanted. Are people really that enamored with their wallpaper?

Because some people have changed their desktop to have a start button and a start menu that looks like windows 7 and prior.  Not saying anything one way or another about the choice- but it is their choice and I don't see anything wrong with letting them do it.

[Carol Haynes]

After a week on my laptop with Windows 8 I gave in to frustration and installed Start8 - works very well and I would love to have the option of launching straight to the desktop - bypassing the stupid screen that you have to slide out of the way (for no good reason) and then the pointless Metro interface.

I only installed it because I have to have one Windows 8 machine to support customers but I hate it with a passion - it just gets in the way of doing anything you want at every opportunity.

[wraith808]

Some links for you Carol

http://www.7tutorials.com/how-boot-desktop-windows-8-skip-start-screen

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/make-windows-8-boot-straight-to-the-desktop/6976

Also, from comments on article: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/16/going-straight-to-the-windows-8-desktop/

The simple reg hack still work for me:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogin

You’ll see a key called Shell.
By default, it is set to “explorer.exe”.

Change the value to “explorer.exe /select,explorer.exe”
(no quotes)

Works for me on the “activated” RTM Enterprise.
Start Menu flashes for a split second…then Desktop.

I've also heard that Classic Shell allows you to boot to the desktop.

Caveat: I've not tried any of these techniques (don't have Windows 8 yet), so I can't testify to the veracity of any of these solutions.

[Carol Haynes]

Thanks - I will check those out.

At the end of the day it makes me wonder what the point is - Windows 8 out of the box drives me mad and Windows 8 with Start8 and a fix to send me to the desktop is just Windows 7.

Judging by some of the articles I read over Xmas about Win8 sales it looks like MS is having some problems convincing anyone this is more than another Vista fiasco.

[TaoPhoenix]

The simple reg hack still work for me..

Just so I can learn about a concept, done the long way, isn't there a 1 click button that goes to the desktop from the start screen? So wouldn't one of our famous snacks just run at boot-up which silently does that? It feels like an alt. for people like me who think that hard registry entries might be a little too aggressive. (In the sense that if you don't keep a list, maybe you get silent bugs from something else years later that relies on the factory registry setting.)

[TaoPhoenix]

At the end of the day it makes me wonder what the point is - Windows 8 out of the box drives me mad and Windows 8 with Start8 and a fix to send me to the desktop is just Windows 7.

Judging by some of the articles I read over Xmas about Win8 sales it looks like MS is having some problems convincing anyone this is more than another Vista fiasco.

Heh Carol,
Put cynically with old school memes,
"We Are Microsoft of Borg. We do not care if Win8 drives you mad. Smart old timer customer are not our market (this year!) We are pushing some obscure tablet-based agenda on newer users that we can assimilate. Resistance is futile." (Until they inject a nano-virus of some common sense and put it all back next year for Windows Blue!)

[wraith808]

Judging by some of the articles I read over Xmas about Win8 sales it looks like MS is having some problems convincing anyone this is more than another Vista fiasco.

There's some other improvements over windows 7, and those are sadly overlooked because of the start menu thing.  And that's not that big a deal- a lot of people are lumping the whole of the OS in with Metro, and that's sad and short sighted.  I remember when Windows 95 first came out and people did the same thing about the start menu.  But Bill Gates was at the helm then, and say what you might about him, they navigated those waters well.  Some good articles on what else has changed and why it's such an improvement: (especially check out sandboxing, the changes to memory use, and DEP/EMET (which f0dder has talked about before))

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/better-on-the-inside-under-the-hood-of-windows-8/

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/138177-under-the-hood-of-windows-8-or-why-desktop-users-should-upgrade-from-windows-7

Personally, I think they should have taken a more measured approach, and put in the ability to restore a version of the classic start menu and boot directly to the desktop.  Not that I would use them necessarily- but for those that are resistant, this pretty much removes the complaints.  Then, over time, as they start to deprecate the start menu, it won't be such a shock to the system.  They've already made changes over time to it before, and left the old functionality available for a time.  Why they didn't do that here, I don't know.

[edbro]

Place shortcut to preferred desktop application(s) on Start Screen, Boot, Click/Touch, Done ... Why that so hard?

And what happens when you close that desktop app? You are left staring at the old style desktop without a start button! That is why I installed Classic Shell and just stick to the old desktop. I would gladly use the new interface if you could consistently stay in it.

[Josh]

Why do you need the start menu? You can simply click the lower left corner, where the start button used to be, and you can type just as you would before. I don't know many people who navigated the menus rather than typing the entry name...At least users NOT on XP.

[edbro]

Why do you need the start menu? You can simply click the lower left corner, where the start button used to be, and you can type just as you would before. I don't know many people who navigated the menus rather than typing the entry name...At least users NOT on XP.

That's not an argument for the new interface. All you need is a basic shell. Therefore, not much incentive to upgrade. Personally, I use Mouser's Launchbar Commander, which also doesn't work on "the interface formally known as Metro".

[Carol Haynes]

Why do you need the start menu? You can simply click the lower left corner, where the start button used to be, and you can type just as you would before. I don't know many people who navigated the menus rather than typing the entry name...At least users NOT on XP.

It's not that simple - doing basic tasks like using the control panel flips you in and out of desktop/metro mode like a yoyo and it is extremely irritating. This is because settings are liberally scattered all over the place in metro screens and in desktop CP applets - and their locations aren't even 100% consistent with their context. You go to settings in Metro and selecting some options sends you to the desktop, you click on some options on the desktop and you are thrown back into Metro! It is incredibly schizophrenic!!!

Yes you can press the Windows key and type what you want like you can in Windows 7 but it is much less stressful and annoying if doing that doesn't make the screen flash backwards and forwards twice, it is also easier to find what you are looking for if you need to look for something to have a simple alphabetic menu than wade through potentially pages of multi-sized tiles on the off chance you might just spot what you are looking for (assuming that a tile is there in the first place - because not every desktop app gets a tile!!!!).

I have only installed it on my laptop - not my desktop because the corner hot spots don't work when you have three monitors!!! Well they do, but you have to accurately hit a spot that is about 2x2 pixels, which is very tiring and annoying to use all day.

[Stoic Joker]

Why do you need the start menu? You can simply click the lower left corner, where the start button used to be, and you can type just as you would before. I don't know many people who navigated the menus rather than typing the entry name...At least users NOT on XP.

+10 - I haven't browsed the menu in years either. I always use the Win keys ... So Win, type, enter, use app. What changed exactly?

It's no wonder VCR's got such a bad rap for being hard to program...they didn't have start buttons. Maybe we should put start buttons on everything just so it magically becomes easy to use. Obviously life is too hard without a singular magical button that tells you where to begin. This paradigm must be preserved religiously, at all cost. I'm going to run down the street and have a Start Button tattooed on my ass ... That way - because some other idiotic tattoo might run the risk of being less bloody obvious - people will always know just where to start kicking me to death for being stupid enough to have a Start Button tattooed on my ass.

*Sigh* ...I'm thinking about going to live in a cave for a few years, and wait for the world to change.

[edbro]

Everybody has their own workflow and one isn't more stupid than the other. I avoid the keyboard as I'm usually leaning back in my chair so that the mouse and a launch bar is easier. A well organized start menu is also pretty handy. If you never organize your start menu and have a separate folder for 100 different apps, then yeah, typing is faster. The Macs are known for their ease of use and they come with a dock preinstalled.

Just because you prefer typing for your entry doesn't mean you should ridicule those who prefer a different workflow.

[Stoic Joker]

But vilifying something for having the audacity to replace the steam engine is perfectly fine.

[Carol Haynes]

But vilifying something for having the audacity to replace the steam engine is perfectly fine.

Depends whether you feel the steam engine being replaced by a horse and cart is an improvement.

OK I may not be prepared to move with the times but when the interface I am being asked to use on a laptop with a touchpad is clunky in the extreme and gives you a headache too why should I move and be happy with my new whip!

If it was a genuine advance on what came before I would embrace it but change JUST to lure idiots into the MS store way of doing things is (IMHO anyway) anything but progress.

I quite happily use an Android tablet - and would probably be happy to use a tablet with WinRT, though I don't want an MS lockin any more than an Apple lockin - but on a desktop or laptop it is annoying pure and simple. I don't appear to be alone in this view given the poor pre-Xmas sales figures and the fact that Win 7 desktops and laptops still seem to be outselling Windows 8 boxes ???

[f0dder]

I don't get the big fuzz about booting initially to the Metro tiles thingy. It's one additional keypress to get past it. On a laptop you're going to be using Sleep, Hibernation or Hybrid Shutdown - which means you'll see the tiles screen just how often? (sure, after Windows Update, and some times during the initial install-apps-and-reboot-frenzy).

"Boot straight to desktop" - does that mean skipping the user login, and account password? I hope not O_o

"Start screen" is 100x better than the cruddy old (pre-Vista) start menu, you can actually find things. And having it full screen gives you so much more Information At Your Fingertips ( ) than a limited Vista/Win7 menu. I'm very sensitive to animation nonsense and usually turn it all off, but the start-screen transmission is smooth & fast, even on limited Intel graphics. Forcing it on people is a bit meh, but without it there might never have been any progress.

Metro<>Desktop switching indeed feels schizophrenic, but I just don't see it in my everyday work (apart from the startscreen). The only metro elements I see are when I change wireless networks, and I find the networkbar a lot nicer than the cruddy old little dialog window in past Windows versions.

I'm probably gonna turn off the charms thingy though, as I don't ever use it. It doesn't pop up by accident often enough that it's a nuisance, though, so I haven't bothered to google how to get rid of it.

As I see it, Win8 is "mostly for the better" (even if I'd like a clean separation of Metro and Desktop - while it works wonderfully on tablets and phones, it's too alien on desktops and laptops). The only things I'm worried about are the slippery-slope "political" things that are happening, crApple copycat style.

[Stoic Joker]

@f0dder - Thank you. Precisely as you stated my (non touch) vanilla Win8 laptop wakes directly to the desktop where I left it every single time I grab it from where it naps by the end table next to my recliner. Given I've just been charging now and then when the battery gets low it hasn't been rebooted in months. So I'd almost forgotten the "evil" metro screen existed.

@Carol - TouchPads suck, I'll definitely give you that...as I totally hate them. But people keep buying the damn things, so (to work in the field) I gotta figure out how to use them. I'm getting better...but still recidivisticly resort to using the keyboard frequently.

[Tinman57]

This is from August and there are ways to boot straight to desktop...

Thanks for the update! Nothin' like good ol' 4+ month old news!

  And what's worse is I just got this in the Dec 31st ZdNet Newsletter.  WTF?

[Tinman57]

I'm still trying to fathom the logic in skipping directly to a Start Button-less desktop just to have to go back to the thing you bypassed to get what you wanted. Are people really that enamored with their wallpaper?

Place shortcut to preferred desktop application(s) on Start Screen, Boot, Click/Touch, Done ... Why that so hard?

I should run down to the local tire store and pitch a fit because they have no steel banded wooden rims for my pickup...just to see if anyone there has enough sense to laugh at me.

  Guess that depends on if it's a 1929 Ford truck.... 

[Tinman57]

Why do you need the start menu? You can simply click the lower left corner, where the start button used to be, and you can type just as you would before. I don't know many people who navigated the menus rather than typing the entry name...At least users NOT on XP.

  I'm on XP, when I want to run an app I just hit Win-Q and then type the first couple of letters of the app I want to run, and Ta-Dah!  It's running.  It's called Slickrun.  But there are times when I want to run an app that I haven't used in a while and can't remember the name.  That's where the start menu comes in handy, or I can hit Win-Q and have Slickrun give me a list of apps...