> No, people don't like the Windows 8 UI because it's terrible on the desktop.

I use Windows 8.1 on the desktop every day - since Windows 8 was released - and I honestly can't understand why people have such huge problems with it unless it is just about change.

I had my first impressions of it in a VM when it was RTM. At that time I did think it was pretty ugly and I got really frustrated (i.e., I was cussing up a storm) trying to figure out how to shut it down properly via the UI - in the RTM release I believe the only way to do that was to use the Charms bar, and I had to Google to figure that out. I also did not have any particular fondness for the Metro apps.

Sometime later I made it the primary OS on my laptop - which, as I purchased it in 2006, is non-touch. I use an external mouse instead of a touchpad because I hate touchpads, full-stop. And I'd say that in my opinion, Windows 8 is definitely the best Windows for desktop. The one major complaint I had, about shutdowns, was resolved by having a power button on the Start Screen, and additionally adding a context menu to the Start button on the taskbar that gives you quick access to shutdown options.

Almost everything in Windows 8 works the same. For example, I see frequent complaints about how terrible the Start Screen is for desktop users. I don't think it's very pretty, but it works almost exactly the same as the old start menu. The primary difference is that it takes up the full screen, which I don't think is too terribly a big deal since the Start Menu goes away if you take away focus anyway. Opening applications works the same way as it has since Vista: hit winkey, type the first few letters of the application, hit enter. Alternatively, click on the start button, click on the application (if pinned) or click on All Programs to scroll through all your applications. This is moderately improved in Win 8 since you can change what your programs are sorted by, unlike Win 7 (for example: Most Used, Most Recently installed, etc.)

I am not a big fan of the Metro apps, but they do now show up on the taskbar, they do have a titlebar with a close and minimize button, and you can sort-of resize them. The only one I use is Weather. By default (and maybe this has changed since I installed it), Windows does have Metro apps set to open your pictures, etc. The default app setting is easy to change, though I can't imagine many new users expecting or wanting the new Metro apps. The only one I had to change was changing images to open in Windows Photo Viewer; the rest was "fixed" by installing my usual apps (VLC, Firefox, etc.)

Other than that, there are plenty of desktop-centric improvements. Multi-monitor support is much better. There is a fantastic context menu on the Start button with quick access to various administrative functions. Various things throughout the desktop OS get slight improvements; the file copy dialog is better, task manager is better, Windows Explorer is better. For the most part, the average desktop user is almost never even going to see the Metro interface. And I have never, ever touched the Charms bar, ever since that virtual machine. It's totally unnecessary for a desktop workflow. Which I suppose could be a complaint in itself.

The only real regression I see is that the Windows 8 file search kind of blows. It works as well as Windows 7 if you know what you're looking for - hit Windows key, type part of the file name, hit enter - but for any kind of advanced search you have to open up Windows Explorer and do it from there. The Start Screen is also missing the recently-opened files list on the Windows 7 start menu - you have to pin to the taskbar to get the same effect.

Can you go into more exactly why it's terrible on desktop? Is it just you think tiles waste space, the clash between Metro/desktop is kind of jarring, that kind of thing?