Windows 8 Consumer Preview Was a Big Disappointment

I am a Windows guy and like (apparently) everyone else I am very impressed with the slick and smooth new Windows 8 tiled interface but I sure am disappointed in many other facits: 

 

 

 

1. No Start Button = No Corporate Sales.  I am an authorized reseller and I used the Win8 CP yesterday for 6 hours.  While it looks pretty for consumers, there is no way this is going to fly in companies in the next two years.  The tiled interface functions just fine with a mouse; that is not the problem.  The issue is largely the hugely expensive retraining that would be required and the loss of productivity.  Like the change from 32bit to 64bit, there needs to be a transitional product in which Microsoft produces both versions.  The Office 2007 GUI was very painful for many corporations which caused a serious slow down in migrations, but it was a MUCH better interface.  Tiles are at best, equal to the Start Button & Search logic.  Not having a Start Button is craziness.  Windows 8 should offer 3 interfaces and I should be able to choose which GUI I want Win8 to boot to by default:
1. Tiled Interface
2. Start Button / Classic / Explorer Interface
3. Media Center Interface
2. Media Center is apparently completely unchanged.  In Canada, I STILL can not see on-demand TV.  This is nuts.  How is it that Microsoft STILL has not worked out an arrangment with ABC, CBS, TBS, CNN… for non-US installs?
3. Media Player is apparently completely unchanged other than in negative ways.  I could not even get PLAY TO to see my XBox360… and they are physically cabled to the same network switch!  I understand that the DVD codec is no longer included, although I have not confirmed this.
4. The Snipping Tool STILL does not let you add text or print.  How can this be?  An associate of mine came up with a good idea which would solve this easily.  How about having the snip go directly into PAINT and the CLIPBOARD rather than the SNIP GUI and the CLIPBOARD?  I posted THIS with Microsoft in 2009 and it has nearly 12000 views, far more than any other post I have created on an MS forum… clearly lots of people want this functionality.
5. The lack of a Feedback Tool or Feedback process, means that the only ways to get opinions, problems and bug reports back to Microsoft is to post it on your blog.
6. Display File Extensions by default!  I can’t think of a clear reason to not show extensions other than the TINY amount of clutter they cause.  The first thing I do (not exaggerating) when I work on a PC (corporate or personal) is enable the file extensions.  Not having them on leads to confusion and certainly to virus proliferation as people don’t know what they are opening.

I don’t think new features like the Windows Store, IE10 with HTML5 and HyperV (which I have installed but not played with yet) will be near enough to overcome Windows 8’s short comings for Corporations.

Fortunately Microsoft still has lots of time to adjust these things and there surely is a reason they named this a Consumer Preview and not Beta.

As a reseller who fully (and early) embraced the Office 2007 Ribbon Interface, I just don’t see this change working in the Corporate space.  Today I showed it to two clients and without prompting BOTH echo’d my Start Button concerns.

MICROSOFT, PLEASE ADD IN THE START BUTTON AND WORK ON UPDATING SOME OF THE OLD FEATURES LIKE THE SNIPPING TOOL… Let’s see if anyone is listening at Microsoft?

By the way if you are a consumer, you can source a copy at www.windows8.com.  Be sure to get the ISO from the links at the bottom of the page to avoid upgrading your main systems.  If you are an MSDN or Technet subscriber, sign in to those sites and be sure to download the version that ends with WITH APPS.

Please leave me your comments below.  I would love to hear what YOU think.