Windows 8 Review - gVrakas.com

Author: Adam Overa

The new version of Windows is now available on store shelves, and we have the complete lowdown on Microsoft's latest operating system. Join us as we thoroughly dissect the Windows 8 UI (Metro), Apps, Desktop, Gestures, IE10, SkyDrive, and Windows Store.

During the past year, all corners of the technology community were abuzz with news, rumors, and opinions regarding Windows 8. The vast majority of that chatter involved the operating system's completely new tile-based user interface. Up until the end of this summer, the new UI was referred to as Metro. But Microsoft's marketing department decided to change the interface's name to Windows 8 UI.

Big logo, right? Well, perhaps that's fitting, since Windows 8 is the biggest thing to happen to Windows since...well, windows. At this point, Microsoft could quite justifiably change the operating system's name to Tiles.

Getting Acquainted With Windows 8

As the resident “Linux guy,” I'm no stranger to drastic changes and bizarre user interfaces, though. I've seen plenty of both in Linux, and the shift to something new no longer scares me. Naturally, then, I was tasked with writing our Windows 8 review.

My first foray into Windows 8 was with the Developer Preview released back in September of last year. Like (seemingly) everyone else, I was taken aback by the changes Microsoft presented in its then-Metro UI. But I thought, "Hey, it's just a developer preview. Most of this will probably change anyway."

Next came the Consumer Preview in February. This release actually moved Windows 8 further away from the classic Windows experience. I rationalized the changes yet again. After all, it was just a beta, and carrying the label of Consumer Preview, maybe it would yield enough negative feedback that Microsoft would have no choice but to reverse direction.

Then, in May, Microsoft released its Windows 8 Release Preview. Surely this one would address the serious workflow and usability issues that bloggers were publicly skewering. Nope, not even close.

Finally, a 90-day trial of Windows 8 Enterprise Edition was made available this past August, and I grabbed that too. Very quickly, I realized that Microsoft had no plans to pull the plug and back out of its bold design departure.

Windows 8's tile-based UI

Which brings us to the here and now: Window 8 is officially available for purchase. If you were waiting for Microsoft to jump out from behind a bush and yell "April Fools!" after all of those early peeks at the operating system, you're no doubt flabbergasted by the operating system's final form.

But don't count Microsoft out too quickly. I didn't take Windows 8 very seriously until a few days ago either. But, during the course of writing this review, found my stubborn disdain turning into something else.

Along with Windows 8 RTM, I had early access to two genuine Windows 8-based notebooks from Toshiba: the Satellite S955 and P845t. Between my time with those two laptops and installing Windows 8 on every x86-based platform I could find, I finally understand Windows 8, and I'm confident that I can explain it to you, too.

Over the next 20 pages, we'll break down the Windows 8 UI, piece-by-piece in sometimes-sickening detail. We'll use the keyboard, mouse, and touch. We cover the installation and setup. We have the apps, the Store, and the settings. Then, we get into the "classic" desktop, following up with an exploration of how Windows 8 affects the traditional Windows experience. Plus, we show you how to either create synergy between Windows 8 UI and the desktop, or to ignore the new stuff altogether.

Let's kick this story off by going over the vitals: system requirements, upgrade paths, available versions, and pricing.

Upgrade Paths

If you currently have a copy of Windows 7, Vista, or XP, you're technically able to upgrade to Windows 8. Taking the plunge from Windows 7 lets you keep your applications, settings, and files. Vista users lose their apps, but settings and files should transfer over without a problem. Windows XP users need to have Service Pack 3 installed, and are only able to hold onto their files; settings and apps don't transition from XP to Windows 8.

Of the three pre-release versions of Windows 8, only the Release Preview can be upgraded to the final build. Unfortunately, this upgrade path only saves files; apps and settings are lost. Anyone still on the Windows 8 Developer or Consumer Previews needs to perform a complete re-installation. Using a pre-release copy of Windows 8 does notqualify you for upgrade pricing.

System Requirements

Fortunately for anyone running Vista or 7, Windows 8 has the exact same minimum system requirements, including:

Processor: 1 GHz or faster
RAM: 1 GB (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Additional requirements to use certain features:

To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multitouch
To access the Windows Store, and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768
To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768
Internet access (ISP fees might apply)

*These system requirements come straight from Microsoft. However, the company leaves out that you also need a Microsoft account to access the Windows Store.

SKUs And Pricing

Windows 8 is available in three flavors: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows RT. Windows RT is the version shipping on devices with ARM's CPU architecture, and it only supports apps downloaded from the Windows Store. Microsoft isn't selling Windows RT on its own, and we're not covering it in today's review.

Consumers can, however, purchase an upgrade copy of Windows 8 Pro as a digital download for $40, with the option to have a disc mailed for an extra $15. The retail boxed copy goes for $70. Moreover, anyone purchasing a Windows 7 PC between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 is also eligible for the Windows 8 Pro upgrade (as a download) at the reduced price of $15.

The differences between Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro include the addition of BitLocker, Client Hyper-V (previously available in Windows Server), file system encryption, Group Policy, Remote Desktop hosting, the ability to boot from virtual disks, and join domains.

Below are the five different retail box images of Windows 8 Pro, which feature designs reminiscent of the new Start screen.

The full (non-upgrade) OEM version of Windows 8 Pro is selling online for about $140 today, while the full non-Pro OEM version goes for $100. Although there is no official word (so far) on pricing after Microsoft's promotional period ends, Newegg's listing for the Windows 8 Pro upgrade claims an original price of $200.

Media Center And Pro Packs

Alright, so you just bought a copy of Windows 8 Pro for your home theater PC. You finish putting together the hardware, install and update Windows, pop in a Blu-rayDVD disc, and kick back. But not so fast; you need to fork over even more for the Media Center Pack. That's right. This time around Microsoft charges extra for Windows Media Center, DVD, and Blu-ray playbackand broadcast television recording.

At least Windows 7 supported playback of video DVDs. The capability is now gone in a step backward justified by the cost of decoder licensing. Buying the pack reintroduces DVD playback. plus Blu-ray. In essence, you're purchasing the third-party software you would have needed anyway for those higher-def movies under Windows 7. CyberLink and Arcsoft cannot be pleased by this.

Update (11/03/12): We posted an addendum to this review that clarifies what the Media Center and Pro Packs do. Check out Windows 8: Clarifying Codecs, Compiling, And Compatibility for more.

Fortunately, Microsoft is throwing in the Media Center Pack for anyone purchasing Windows 8 Pro during its introductory promotion period. After that, it'll cost $10.

Next up is the Windows 8 Pro Pack. This upgrades Windows 8 to the Pro edition withMedia Center capabilities. The Windows 8 Pro Pack is supposed to sell for $70.

Now, before we get into the Windows 8 installation and setup process, let's take a quick peek at the systems I've been running in preparation for this review.

Installation

Anyone with experience installing Windows 7 will feel right at home in the Windows 8 installer. The first component of the process is almost identical to Windows 7, in fact. It's just a lot more...purple.

Even Aero-style window decorations remain (even though Windows 8 itself is devoid of Vista and 7's glass-like interface).

After the reboot, however, all traces of Windows 7 disappear. It's all Windows 8 from here on out.

Setup

The first step in the Windows 8 setup process is choosing a color scheme and giving your system a name.

Next, you need to choose between Express or Custom settings. In a nutshell, the Express option turns on automatic updates (both important and recommended), enables the SmartScreen Filter for Windows and IE10 (to prevent phishing attempts), engages Do Not Track in IE10, allows anonymous statistic reporting to Microsoft, checks online for solutions to issues, switches on network sharing, and permits applications to use your name, account picture, and location services.

If you choose to customize the settings, you can toggle any of the Express presets on or off, with even finer granularity in some categories.

Next, you're asked to sign in. Windows 8 requires you to log on to (or create) a Microsoft account in order to utilize the cloud/sync features of its new operating system. The account is also needed for downloading apps from the Windows Store. Any Microsoft account will work, including Hotmail, Outlook, Live, and so on. If you'd rather avoid those features, you can also create a traditional local user account.

Finally, there's a little animation that provides a mini-tutorial on using Windows 8, followed by a constantly-changing background of colors that lasts through the last few minutes of the installation process.

If only that little tutorial really explained everything you need to know...

The way in which you navigate the Windows 8 UI is completely different from any other version of Windows in history. Let's go over the major on-screen elements as well as basic control mechanics (arguably the most non-obvious aspect to Windows 8).

Navigating The Windows 8 UI

Since Windows 8 was designed with touch-based devices in mind, and a taskbar crams in too much information to be finger-friendly, the Windows 8 UI employs four different tool bars, one for each edge of the screen. The screenshot below is a map of the Windows 8 UI from the Start screen.

Windows 8 UI Map

The right-hand bar is called the Charms bar. Below is a shot of the Windows 8 Start screen with the Charms bar active.

Charms Bar

The bar that spawns from the left side of the screen is called the Switcher, and the following image is of the Windows 8 Start screen with the Switcher visible.

Switcher

The bottom bar is called the App bar, and the screenshot below shows the App bar on the Windows 8 Start screen.

The last bar appears from up top and is called the Navigation bar. Only a few apps make use of the navigation bar, and it does not appear on the Start screen. The screenshot below is of the Navigation and App bars in Internet Explorer 10.

Navigation & App Bars

Controlling The Windows 8 UI

There are no maximize or minimize buttons in the Windows 8 UI. Instead, the active window appears full-screen by default, and inactive applications are simply hidden from sight. This is very much how mobile operating systems like Google's Android, Apple's iOS, and HP's WebOS are organized.

That's not to say that Windows 8 takes us back to the dark ages of single-tasking. Rather, Windows 8 lets you Snap apps, somewhat similarly to Windows 7. In fact, window management (really, app management in Windows 8), is accomplished entirely through Snap. When you move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen in an app (including the Desktop), the familiar pointer becomes a hand.

You can Snap any app to either side of the screen. Unlike Aero Snap in Windows 7, Snap in the Windows 8 UI doesn't split the screen into equal halves. Instead, one app becomes a small sidebar, while the other monopolizes most of the screen.

Once an app is snapped, you can go back to the Start screen and open another app to populate what desktop real estate remains. Alternatively, you can also select an app that is already open from the Switcher on the left side of the screen.

Windows 8 UI Snap

A thick vertical slider bar separates the two applications. Dragging the slider toward the larger window turns it into the sidebar-sized app, thereby enlarging the app that was previously the sidebar.

Moving the slider all of the way off either side of the screen causes the window occupying that side to disappear, and the other app returns to full-screen mode.

You can also take an app and swap it over to the other side of the screen by clicking and dragging it over. This swaps the position of two open applications, but does not change their size.

Finally, you close Windows 8 apps by dragging them down to the bottom of the screen. They'll resist at about the halfway point, but quickly accelerate once your cursor gets close to the bottom edge. Ostensibly, this is to reduce unintended closures on touchscreens. However, the action is more of an issue on some older-style trackpads. Successfully closing an app on Toshiba's Satellite S955 using double-tap and drag (not the physical buttons) is a challenge. The clickpad-equipped Toshiba Satellite P845t, on the other hand, was much easier to use.

Now that we're better-acquainted with the basics, let's dig deeper into the Windows 8 UI, starting with the, er, Start screen.

The first thing you're sure to notice in Windows 8 is the colorfully-tiled Start screen. Yes, the good ol' Start menu is officially toast. A full-screen menu of sorts replaces the simple pop-up we've used since Windows 95.

Windows 8 Start Screen

Also startling to most users is the fact that Windows 8 boots to the Start screen instead of the classic Windows desktop. But worry not. See that big tile at the bottom of the first column? The one with the two daisies on a blue background? Click that tile and you'll get ported to a much more familiar environment (we'll cover the Windows 8 desktop soon, but first, let's try to make some sense out of the new UI).

Live Tiles

Windows 8 applications are represented by brightly-colored live tiles. More than mere icons, live tiles can display and update app data. For instance, the Weather app stays current with local weather conditions. The Store app displays the number of available app updates. And our own Tom's Hardware app displays the headline of our latest article.

Tiles can be rearranged by simply clicking and dragging them to another location. The live updates can be disabled, and tiles can be re-sized to take up one or two vertical icon spots. They can also be unpinned or even uninstalled from the Start screen. Right-clicking on a tile brings up the App bar (detailed later) with all these options.

Although desktop apps can be pinned to the Start screen, they don't appear as live tiles, but as regular icons within a tile (again, more on this later).

Tile Groups

Tiles can be organized into groups, which are at least two tiles wide, but can be as large as you desire. In other words, you can create a bunch of two-tile-wide groups, one mammoth group of tiles, or any combination in-between.

In order to create a group of tiles, simply drag a tile into a blank area next to or between existing groups. An opaque vertical bar appears, indicating where the new group is to be created.

You can zoom out for a bird's-eye view of the entire Start screen by clicking the minus sign in the bottom-right corner. On a touchscreen-equipped device, this can also be achieved with a two-finger pinch-to-zoom gesture.

Start Screen Overview

In this view, you can rearrange entire groups of tiles by clicking and dragging, just as you did with individual tiles in the regular view. Right-clicking on any tile group brings up the App bar, which gives you an option to name that group of tiles.

User Picture

Your picture and name appear toward the upper right-hand corner of the Windows 8 Start screen. Clicking this area yields a pop-down menu with the options to change your user account picture, lock the screen, or log out.

All Apps

But the apps that appear on the Start screen don't cover everything you get in Windows 8. What happened to Calculator, Paint, and Remote Desktop, for example?

All of the non-Windows 8 UI apps, including the ones listed above, plus Notepad, WordPad, and the Run command, are in All Apps. Right-clicking anywhere on the Start screen opens the App bar. All Apps is on the far right end of it. Clicking on All Apps takes you to an Apps screen, which is somewhat similar to the old Start menu, but with the menu trees expanded out into a full-screen list.

The Windows 8 UI apps are listed first, followed by categorized listings of all legacy Windows apps. You can right-click on any of them to bring up an option to pin to the Start screen or Desktop taskbar (along with opening a new window, running as administrator, and navigating to the folder containing the app).

Aside from the Start screen, the Charms bar is probably the second-most important part of the Windows 8 UI. It contains Windows 8's version of the Start button, along with four other functions that change depending on the current app (or the main app, if Snap is being used).

The Charms bar is activated by moving the mouse cursor to either the top- or bottom-right corners of the screen. When the cursor hits one of these hot corners, five white icons appear from the right side. From there, move the cursor toward the center Windows icon. A black bar now appears that makes the Charms bar active.

You'll find five tools (or charms) on the bar. From top to bottom, you have Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings.

Search

The Search charm defaults to the Apps filter when activated from the Start screen or desktop, but you can switch to the Settings or Files filter (or to any of the Windows 8 apps currently installed on the system).

If the application you wish to search isn't already open, it launches in the main Snap area, leaving the Search charm active as a sidebar on the right side of the screen.

The Share charm gives you different ways to share content inside of an app. For instance, the Toshiba Satellites came with the StumbleUpon app pre-installed, and Windows 8 comes with Mail and People apps. So, on those systems, I have three ways to share content from another piece of software like Internet Explorer 10.

When a share is started, the app creating it becomes a double-wide sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen.

Start

This charm is simply the Start button for the Windows 8 UI; selecting it opens the Start screen.

Devices

The Devices charm gives applications access to connected devices like monitors, projectors, and printers. You would use the Devices charm to print a webpage, for example, or to connect your laptop to a projector or HDTV.

Settings

The top portion of the Settings charm contains options for and information about the current app.

The bottom portion provides quick access to essential PC functions, such as a networking manager, volume and brightness sliders, notifications, sleep/shut down/restart, an on-screen keyboard, and PC settings (the Windows 8 UI equivalent of the old Control Panel).

Whenever the Charms bar is invoked, an opaque black box also appears in the lower-right corner of the screen. This area contains indicators for things like the network connection, battery, time, and date.

So, with the Start button, devices, clock, and indicators, the Charms bar operates a lot like the taskbar in Microsoft's Windows 8 UI. Well, half of the taskbar, anyway. We're still missing the equivalent of a window list (where all of the currently-open windows can be selected). That functionality is handled by the bar on the left side of the screen, called the Switcher.

The Switcher is essentially the other half of the taskbar in Windows 8.

It auto-hides on the left side of the screen. Like the Charms bar on the right, you have to move your mouse cursor to the top or bottom corner and then move it towards the center in order to see the full contents of the Switcher.

If you are on the Start screen with no apps open, the Switcher does not appear at all and the left-side hot corners do nothing. If you only have one application open, the Switcher won't appear like a dock. Instead, the hot corners take you back to the app from the Start screen, while the bottom-left corner takes you back to the Start screen from the app.

You need to have two or more apps open for the Switcher to start acting like a proper taskbar.

Oddly, when you have so many apps open that you run out of space on the Switcher, apps start disappearing. They don't get smaller, and the list doesn't scroll. They're simply not listed anymore. What's more, according to the Task Manager these apps are still running, but there is nothing to indicate as much. This appears to simply be a list ofthe most recently launched apps, with the number of apps on the list depending on your vertical resolution.

Full Switcher

Right-clicking on an app in the Switcher reveals a pop-up menu with the option to close that app. If you're already employing Snap, the options to Snap left or right also appear in the right-click menu.

Snapping via the Switcher's right-click menu always manipulates the sidebar app and leaves the main app alone. In other words, the main app is sticky.

As an example, let's say you have the desktop open as the main app on the left side of the screen, and Bing Weather open as the sidebar app on the right...

...but now you want to look at the News app in a sidebar on the left side of the desktop. Right-click on News in the Switcher and choose Snap left. This causes the desktop to slide right, moving the Bing Weather app off-screen and creating room for the News app on the left.

Alternatively, if you simply want to replace the Bing Weather app on the right side of the screen, choose Snap right on the News app and it replaces the Weather app.

Most apps, and even the Start screen, have additional options that don't fit on-screen or get handled by Charms. In desktop applications, these functions are usually found in the uppermost toolbar or buried within the menu bar. Since Microsoft's Windows 8 UI has none of the usual windowing mechanisms, these functions had to go elsewhere.

Right-clicking in the Windows 8 UI usually brings up one or two bars: the App bar from the bottom of the screen and/or the Navigation bar from the top of the screen. Both the App and the Navigation bars change to suit to the current app. Below are some examples of the options and controls found in these bars.

On the Start screen, the App bar brings up the All Apps button.

The Start screen has no Navigation bar. The Windows Store, on the other hand, has a Navigation bar, but no App bar.

The Bing Weather app has both an App and a Navigation bar. The App bar has controls for changing your home location, using a current location (via location services), switching between Celcius and Farenheit, and refreshing the forecast. Meanwhile, the Navigation bar has options to switch to another location, return to the home location, and see an overview of weather around the world.

In Internet Explorer 10, the App bar, oddly enough, contains navigation controls (back, forward, reload, and a location/search bar). The Navigation bar in Internet Explorer 10 hosts thumbnail shortcuts for each open tab.

Programs use the App and Navigation bars to hide extraneous options, like the menu bars we're accustomed to. Between them (and the Charms bar), we're actually surprised how much room there is for added functionality. And yet, controls are all large enough to easily tap with your finger.

Speaking of, now that we understand how to get around the Windows 8 UI with a mouse, let's look at multi-touch.

So far, all of our navigational references have centered on the use of a mouse. Months after the Windows 8 launch, that's how most of us will still be working our way around the operating system.

But it's a well-established fact that Windows 8 was designed with touch in mind. On this page, we'll walk you through the built-in multi-touch gesture, text selection and copy/paste functions, as well as cover the on-screen keyboard.

Mutli-touch Gestures

The Windows 8 UI supports the following multi-touch gestures:

Gesture	Name	Mouse Equivalent or Effect
	Tap	Left-Click
	Slide	Left-Click, Hold, Drag
	Press and Hold	Hover
	Drag to Close	Left-Click, Hold, Drag to bottom
	Pinch/Stretch To Zoom	Ctrl + Scroll Wheel
	Rotate	N/A
	Swipe From Right	Activates the Charms Bar
	Swipe From Left	Activates the Switcher
	Swipe From Top/Bottom	Activates the App and Navigation Bars
	Swipe In and Out From Left Edge	Cycle Through Recent Apps

The Toshiba Satelite S995 does have a Windows 8-compatible trackpad, which is supposed to work with Windows 8 gestures. In practice, it's pretty hit-or-miss, but unfortunately mostly miss. All of the multi-touch gestures are slow, at best, and sometimes they're completely unresponsive. Even the simple two-finger scroll and pinch-to-zoom actions are choppy. Swiping from one edge or the other is basically a bust.

On this model laptop, the trackpad surface is textured and slightly recessed. This makes the swipe-from-edge gesture difficult to pull off without the texture slowing you down, or the small recess causing your fingers to jump directly onto the pad instead of coming in from the actual edge. We're not sure if this experience should be blamed on bad drivers, poorly-designed hardware, or a combination thereof, but Toshiba's Satellite P845t-S4310, which comes equipped with a modern clickpad and touchscreen, changes everything for the better.

All of the gestures work flawlessly on Toshiba's higher-end model. In fact, the touch sensitivity is on par with, if not better, than a third-generation iPad. I guess this one all comes down to input hardware and drivers. As an admitted hater of trackpads, if Windows 8 can get us closer to making Apple-style clickpads and smooth scrolling standard features, then I'm excited.

Text Selection And Copy/Paste

The touch-oriented functionality of text selection and copy/paste are very much related in Windows 8. Individual words are easily selected by simply tapping on the word and highlighting it between two text selectors (represented by white dots with thick black outlines). Additional text can be added by dragging the dots. Tapping any highlighted text then brings up the option to cut, copy, or paste.

Pasting happens in the reverse order. Just tap an area that accepts text input, such as a search box, location bar, or email body. This brings up a flashing cursor and one text selector dot. Simply tap the dot to display the cut, copy, and paste options again.

The On-Screen Keyboard

While my Toshiba Satellite P845t-S4310 test unit is equipped with a touchscreen, it's still a laptop with a physical keyboard and mousing surface. Many people looking to purchase Windows 8-based tablets and slates won't have a built-in keyboard to fall back on, though. This is where the operating system's on-screen keyboard comes in.

The Windows 8 on-screen keyboard is dark grey with white letters, and it defaults to a standard QWERTY layout, adding apostrophe, comma, period, and question mark punctuation keys. Backspace, enter, caps lock, space bar, and left and right cursor keys are also available. The remaining four keys change the keyboard's layout.

The &123 key changes a little over half the left side of the keyboard to general typography and punctuation keys, such as the explanation point, ampersand, and parenthesis. You also get a tab key, plus another set of keys that change the symbols yet again. The right side of the keyboard becomes a number pad. Backspace, enter, and the layout keys remain on-screen in this layout.

In the image above, the key with a right-facing arrow inside a circle switches to a view with less-often-used symbols like brackets, braces, and the tilde. Pressing the key above it, represented by a left-facing arrow inside of a circle, switches back to the original set of symbols. Flipping back and forth does not affect the number pad on the right side of the keyboard.

The Ctrl key also affects the keyboard. Pressing it changes the “a” key to Select all, the “z” key to Undo, the “x” key to Cut, the “c” key to Copy, and the “v” key to Paste. In other words, the Ctrl key brings up the very same options as the holding Ctrl and striking those same letters on a physical keyboard. Slick.

On to the smiley face. Pressing this key changes the entire keyboard to different emoticons. This time, the right- and left-facing arrows inside of the circles flip between pages of different faces (amazingly, there are four pages of emoticons).

Back to the standard keyboard layout. The last key able to alter the others is represented by a keyboard icon. Pressing this button on the bottom-right corner changes the on-screen keyboard's configuration. The options include a standard keyboard, a split-screen keyboard, and a handwriting strip. Sorry, Dvorak fans, you're out of luck on this one.

Picking the split-screen option breaks the keyboard in half, with everything left of “t”, “g”, and “b” crammed onto the left side of the screen. Everything from “y”, “h”, and “u” is shoved over to the right. Smartly, a number pad takes up the center, and the space bar is right where we expect to find it, on both sides of the keyboard.

Although our primary test platform is a laptop, we can tell this is going to be a killer feature for thumb typists (Windows 8 tablet/slate users) just by gripping both sides of the screen and using the on-screen keyboard. Because the keys are actually smaller in this configuration, a larger reverse-color (white, with black letters) pop-up appears directly over the keys you press. This lets you look at the keyboard and see what you're typing without your fingers getting in the way. Did you mean to press “d” instead of “c”? In split-screen mode, you'll know that you mis-typed right when it happens.

Another really cool aspect of the Windows 8 on-screen keyboard is the sound it makes. While other mobile operating systems implement a simple click or clack to indicate keystrokes, Windows 8's keyboard sound is pressure-sensitive. The harder you tap the keys, the louder the report you get back. So, you can quietly tap, making no sound at all, or you can bang away with vigor, generating a very satisfying cacophony of typing noises.

The final keyboard option is handwriting mode, which isn't a keyboard style at all. Instead, you get two large lines for hand-written input. To the right of the screen, you find backspace, tab, enter, left and right cursor keys, a space bar, and the &123 key.

In handwriting mode, the &123 key replaces the handwriting strips with a full set of symbols and the number pad.

Entering text is as easy as writing with you finger, and I found the engine's letter recognition to be pretty good (surprisingly so, given my heinous cursive). Beyond dragging your finger around the screen, there are also a few tricks you can use to edit text in handwriting mode.

Removing a word is as simple as crossing it out with a horizontal line. You can also edit words by tapping them, bringing up a typeface script with dots between each latter. Tap a letter to select it, and draw another letting to replace it or remove it altogether with a horizontal line. Words can also be split, and two words can be joined. Splitting a word is as simple as drawing a vertical line where the split should occur. Merging two words is a matter of drawing a large “U” from the last letter of the first word to the first letter of the second word, or vice versa.

The on-screen keyboard remains in whatever mode you used last, which we consider a great behavior. If you prefer the split-screen keyboard, choose it once and it'll always appear like that.

But the goodness doesn't stop with Microsoft's on-screen keyboard. A number of new shortcuts for physical keyboards were added to make controlling Windows 8 easier as well.

Keyboard Shortcuts

If you're using a keyboard and mouse, plan to make heavy use of the Windows key in Windows 8, since nearly every keyboard shortcut involves it. Even if you typically rely on your mouse for navigation, you'll want to at least get comfortable with the Windows key (especially if you're using a laptop, where the keyboard and trackpad are in the same vicinity anyway).

When used by itself, the Windows key still performs the same function as in Window 7, except that in Windows 8 it opens the Start screen since there is no more Start menu. If you press the Windows key while already on the Start screen, it takes you back the last open app you used.

Although the Windows key gets most of the attention in Windows 8, the relatively unused Application (or Menu) key can also help you get around the Windows 8 UI more efficiently.

What the heck is the Application key?

It's located next to the right-side Windows key, between Alt and Ctrl, and it is represented by a drop-down menu, sometimes with a mouse cursor highlighting the top item. We bet you can't even remember the last time you used it, though.

Of course, the Application key performs the same command as a mouse's right-click button in the Windows 8 UI. So, you can use it to bring up the App and Navigation bars of any Windows 8 app.

The table below lists all of the official Windows 8 UI keyboard shortcuts:

Keyboard Shortcut	Effect
Windows	Switches between Start screen and most recent app
Windows + C	Activates the Charms Bar
Windows + F	Open Search Charm
Windows + H	Opens Share Charm
Windows + K	Opens Devices Charm
Windows + I	Opens Setting Charm
Windows + Z	Activates the App and Navigation Bars
Windows + O	Locks current screen orientation
Windows + Period	Snaps current app to the right
Windows + Shift + Period	Snaps current app to the left
Windows + Page Up	Move Start screen and app to monitor on right
Windows + Page Down	Move Start screen and app to monitor on left

All of the regular Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts are still valid in the Windows 8 Desktop, too.

The apps on this page are essential to Microsoft's Windows 8 experience and ecosystem.

Essentials

Desktop

Did you ever think you'd see a day when the Windows desktop would be compartmentalized into its own little app? That's exactly what this is, though, and at least at first, you might find yourself using it often.

We'll go into more depth on the Windows desktop shortly.

SkyDrive

SkyDrive is Microsoft's equivalent of DropBox. Like DropBox, it backs up the contents of a folder (the SkyDrive folder), syncing it to all other devices running SkyDrive with the same user account. Cloud sync is absolutely crucial to Microsoft's bet that people will buy multiple Windows 8-based devices.

As someone who uses many devices simultaneously, and changes operating systems with the frequency that most people change their Facebook status, cloud backup and sync are already essential components of my routine. Frankly, I'd be lost without DropBox. So, I decided to install Windows 8 on nearly all of my machines and give SkyDrive a shot as my cloud-based storage.

This is one area where Microsoft's solution simply isn't on par with the industry leader, and it all comes down to latency. Mere seconds after saving a document, DropBox backs it up to the cloud and I have the latest version on every other machine with DropBox installed. I'm not kidding here. DropBox does its job before I can stand up from my chair. SkyDrive, on the other hand, takes a few minutes before the latest versions of my files appear on other systems.

Even the initial setup process is significantly more time-consuming than DropBox. I have nearly 3 GB of files that I need to access through the cloud. Getting all 3 GB to a new installation is an hour-long affair with DropBox over an Ethernet connection, or roughly three over Wi-Fi. Using SkyDrive, the first-time sync was an overnight process. Needless to say, I'll be racing back to DropBox as soon as this story goes live.

Internet Explorer 10

Internet Explorer 10 is the default Web browser for Windows 8. The Windows 8 UI version is 64-bit, while the desktop version of IE10 is a 32-bit build.

Like all Windows 8 UI apps, Internet Explorer 10 runs fullscreen. When the App and Navigation bars are activated, IE10 is almost an upside-down version of its Desktop counterpart. All of the usual navigation controls (like the back/forward buttons, location/search bar, reload button, favorite button, page search, and the option to open in the desktop) are contained within the bottom App bar.

Much like the on-screen keyboard's split-screen mode, IE10 puts the back and forward buttons on opposite sides of the App bar, reinforcing the two-hand grip and tendency to use tablets in a landscape orientation.

Similar to the Windows 7 taskbar, Web locations can be pinned to the Windows 8 Start screen. When you do this, pinned pages appear as the site's favicon and name in a tile matching the favicon's predominant color.

The upper Navigation bar holds tumbnails of all open tabs with the options to close them, open a new tab (or new InPrivate tab), or close all but the active tab.

Early benchmarks indicate that Internet Explorer 10 may be a real player. By the end of the week, we'll have a Windows 8-based Web Browser Grand Prix, complete with benchmarks to better-represent the state of Web browsing under Windows 8.

Microsoft's Ecosystem

No company in the mobile ecosystem business can hope to succeed without creating a marketplace from which customers can fill their devices with paid premium content. Apple has its App Store, Google has Google Play, Amazon has the Kindle Store...you get the idea. The serious players in the content distribution market have well-stocked, easily recognizable digital storefronts. Microsoft knows this, and gives Windows 8 users no less than four of them in one day.

Store

The Store app corresponds to the Windows Store, where you can purchase and download apps for Windows 8. This is also where you retrieve updates for those applications (not through Windows Update).

You must have a Microsoft user account, not a local user account, in order to use the Windows Store. While not initially obvious, the way to search for apps in the Store is via the Search Charm.

Games

The Games app opens Xbox Games. More than a new marketplace to purchase Xbox 360 games, Xbox Games also has a way to search and browse Windows 8-based games (though the actual download takes place through the Store app).

You're also able to manage your Xbox profile through the Games app.

Music

The Music App opens Xbox Music, a new ad-supported music streaming service. Xbox Music also has a premium option: pay $10 per month for unlimited streaming without commercials. And, of course, you can also purchase MP3-encoded versions of many songs and albums on Xbox Music.

This app also serves as the default audio player for Windows 8.

Video

The Video app opens Xbox Video, a marketplace for buying or renting movies and television shows.

Xbox Video is the default video player for Windows 8 as well.

Camera is a simple webcam app able to capture still shots, as well as video. It also has a timer, sliders for brightness and contrast, video

The Calendar app is a full-screen calendar and appointment book tool. It opens in monthly view, but you can switch to weekly and daily views, too.

This one is a live tile. It displays the date as a single tile, and also includes upcoming appointments as a double-wide tile.

Mail employs a three-column layout, similar to Outlook. The first column contains folders, the second lists email in the currently-selected folder, and the third (largest) column displays the contents of the message you choose.

The Mail tile displays the number of unread emails as a small tile, and additional information about the latest unread email when configured as a larger tile.

The Messaging app is the default messaging client in Windows 8, and it supports Windows Live Messenger as well as Facebook chat. The Messaging app is only a live tile when it's displayed in double-width, and it has the ability to push notifications to the lock screen.

We like this app's conversation bubbles, and Messaging fits nicely into a sidebar. Truth be told, though, the Windows 8 Skype app is better.

The People app basically functions as a unified address book. Be careful about where you choose to import contacts from because it's way too easy to end up with an unmanageable list of email contacts, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers, all bundled together.

The small People tile isn't live, but the large tile displays a rotating assortment of your contacts' avatars.

Photos is the default Windows 8 image viewer. It's able to display local pictures, images on other devices, in SkyDrive, and the application supports Facebook and Flickr albums as well.

The live tile cycles through your pictures, regardless of whether it's a single- or double-width tile.

The Reader app is Windows 8's default PDF and XPS file viewer. The app bar contains tools for document search, two-page, one-page, or continuous view, open, save as, rotate, info, and close.

The apps on this page serve updated news content and various types of search functionality. All of them are powered by Bing.

Bing is the Windows 8 app for Microsoft's own search engine. Like the site itself, the Bing app has a background image that changes daily and contains clickable areas that reveal facts about the image.

Search results are presented in boxes that scroll horizontally, fitting in with the new Windows 8 UI very nicely.

The corresponding live tile scrolls through the Bing backgrounds as well as the top three trending search terms.

The Finance app displays the day's financial headlines, as well as a user-configurable graph of various indices.

Different exchanges and markets can be tracked, including world currency and commodities markets.

First and foremost, Maps is incredibly fast and fluid. You can pin locations, switch between road and aerial views, add traffic conditions, and, with location services enabled, receive navigation.

The News app essentially cycles through the latest stories on Bing news. You can sort by the type of story (U.S., World, Finance, Technology, etc.) or by the source publication.

The News tile is live. It displays a cover image and headline together as a large tile, and it alternates between the two as a small tile.

The Sports app keeps up with the latest news, scores, and schedules. You can also manually choose the teams you want to follow.

Also a live tile, you see the latest sports headlines, along with a cover image, when the tile is large. Like the news app, it alternates between those two views when it's small.

The Travel app helps nail down hotel, local attraction, and flight information. It also offers travel guides, videos, and panoramic photos of popular destinations like Las Vegas and Thailand (Ed.: Both of which are particularly interesting if you're planning a bachelor party).

In case you can't be bothered to check outside, the Weather app gives you the current conditions with an image to really drive home how badly you probably need some fresh air anyway.

More usefully, it provides a five-day forecast with highs and lows, as well as an hourly forecast.

If, after 14 pages of information about Windows 8, you're still reading, there's a fair chance that you're also starting to realize just how massive Windows 8 really is. It has its own user interface, applications, control scheme, and content distribution system.

You could actually use the Windows 8 UI on its own, if you wanted. We know that many folks (particularly anyone adverse to change) won't want to. But the option is there, and we've covered its intricacies in depth. It only make sense, then, that the Windows 8 UI has its own settings that make it completely autonomous from the classic Windows desktop.

Windows 8's PC settings are accessed from the Settings charm. Its options are divided into the following categories: Personalize, Users, Notifications, Search, Share, General, Privacy, Devices, Wireless, Ease of Access, Sync your settings, HomeGroup, and Windows Update. Ready? We're going to go over each menu's options.

Personalize

In the image above, you see each PC setting category. The first one, Personalize, allows you to customize what shows up in Windows 8's lock screen, the Windows 8 UI Start screen, and your own account picture.

The Lock screen sub-menu lets you set a background image. It's also where you choose the applications able to display updates and notifications on the lock screen (a more important part of the operating system now that we're dealing with more touch-oriented hardware). As you may have surmised, the lock screen conveys information from Windows 8 and certain Windows 8 UI apps. The time, date, and network status are visible by default, along with a battery life indicator on mobile platforms.

Quick status and notifications from up to seven apps can be added to the lock screen, and one app can push more detailed status information. By default, the Messaging, Mail, and Calendar apps all send notifications to the lock screen, and the Calendar app is set to relay detailed info that shows up next to the large time read-out. Of the apps included with Windows 8, only Calendar and Weather are options for pushing detailed status notifications. Quick status notifications might tell you how many unread messages, emails, or tweets await your attention. Detailed status notifications are more substantive, and include information about your next meeting, for example.

The Start screen sub-menu gives you the option to pick a Start screen background image and Windows 8 UI color scheme.

Finally, the Account picture sub-menu lets you pick an avatar for your user account. Either browse your own files for an existing image, or, provided you have a webcam connected, take a picture using the Camera app.

Users

The Users screen lets you switch between Microsoft and local user accounts, change your password, create a gesture-based picture password, specify a four-digit PIN, disable/enable password prompting whenever your system wakes up, and create additional user accounts.

Notifications

This is where you're able to adjust the notification behavior of Windows 8 apps. You can turn notifications off entirely, specify whether you want them to appear on the lock screen, or if you want notifications to be accompanied by an alert sound. Individual app notifications can also be customized here.

Search

The Charms bar's Search settings are actually configurable. Cool, right? Up top, you'll find options to show the most-searched apps first, save searches for future suggestions, and delete search history entirely. As with the notifications, you can single out the apps you want included in a search.

Share

This page is set up exactly like the Notifications and Search menus, with global options up top, followed by more granular app permissions. You have the option to show the most-used and most shared-apps at the top of the Charms bar's Share function, to set the number of items the list includes, or to simply clear the list.

General

The General page includes options for Time, App switching, Spelling, Language, Available storage, "Refresh your PC without affecting your files", "Remove everything and reinstall Windows", and Advanced startup.

Naturally, the Time sub-menu is used to pick a time zone and toggle automatic daylight savings adjustments. App switching contains on/off controls for the Switcher and left-edge gestures. In Spelling, you can enable or disable autocorrect and error highlighting.

The Language screen is the first time we see Windows 8 UI's PC settings menu send us to the conventional desktop Control Panel to change an option. And there's only one configurable setting there: Language preferences. It's strange that this isn't handled by the new touch-friendly user interface.

One sub-menu down, Available storage gives you a button called "View app sizes". Pressing it presents a Windows 8 UI pop-up that tells you how much disk space each Windows 8 app consumes.

The verbose "Refresh your PC without affecting your files" option is for that compulsory semi-annual Windows reinstall. Everybody knows that Windows slows down over time, particularly as you pack it with programs you may have needed once, but never uninstalled. Many power users like to start fresh every so often to get their system back to its peak performance. This option to refresh your PC keeps all of your data and personalization settings intact, along with any apps you bought from the Windows Store. Meanwhile, anything you downloaded from the Web or installed from a CD is purged.

"Remove everything and reinstall Windows" goes one step further, resetting everything to factory defaults. Do this only if your important information is backed-up, since it wipes your files, settings, and apps. This is a fairly common function on smartphones and tablets, which generally aren't repositories for years of pictures, documents, and emails. It even makes sense on notebooks (via OEM-installed restore partitions). But this is much newer territory for desktops. Although the reset option is a nice thought, it takes far longer to get a clean copy of Windows this way than if you were to just pop in your DVD and install Windows 8 the old-fashioned way.

The Advanced startup sub-menu gives you access to functionality handled before Windows 8 boots up. This one is important, folks. Because the operating system loads so quickly, you need this menu in order to get into your motherboard's UEFI. Selecting it restarts your system in a light-blue Windows UI-style utility with the following four options: Continue, Use a device, Troubleshoot, and Turn off your PC.

The first option takes you back to Windows 8, and the last one shuts your machine down. Use a device allows you to boot from a connected device, whether that's a network controller, a USB port, or an optical drive. Finally, the Troubleshoot option lets you pick between Refresh, Reset, and Advanced options.

We're tunneling deeper into menus here, so bear with us. Should you go down the Advanced options rabbit hole, you'll see tiles corresponding to System Restore, System Image Recovery, Automatic Repair, Command Prompt, UEFI Firmware Settings, and Startup Settings.

System Restore gives you the ability to load a previous restore point, while System Image Recovery is for loading Windows from a disk image. Automatic Repair attempts to fix issues related to Windows 8 boot failures. The Command Prompt option boots your machine to a light blue “desktop” with a Windows 7-style non-Aero Run window. Closing the Run windows pops you back up to the main Advanced options screen.

Lastly, picking UEFI Firmware Settings takes you to your motherboard's BIOS screen. Again, Windows 8 boots so quickly (on a modern UEFI-equipped platform) that you don't have time to hit Del or F2. Instead, you have to boot into Windows, open the Charms bar, choose Settings, choose Change PC settings, select General, scroll all the way down to Advanced startup, select Restart now, wait the PC to reboot, choose Troubleshoot, choose Advanced options, choose UEFI Firmware Settings, and finally select Restart to get to your motherboard's UEFI. For those of you keeping score, that's two boot-ups, eight clicks, and about a mile of cursor distance to do what holding the Del key used to accomplish. Overclockers are going to value Windows-based tuning utilities now more than ever.

For all of you Linux nerds out there, this is also how to go about disabling Secure Boot on PCs sold with Windows 8, by the way.

Startup Settings reboots the PC to a light-blue screen with familiar options you might remember from hitting the F8 key during boot-up in older Windows operating systems:

Privacy

The Privacy page contains on/off switches to "Let apps use my location", "let apps use my name and account picture", and "Help improve Windows Store by sending URLs for the web content that apps use". A link to the full Windows 8 privacy statement is also available on this page.

Devices

This page lists all devices connected to your PC. The Microsoft XPS Document Writer is there by default, along with anything physically attached to your computer, such as USB drives, monitors, keyboards, mice, speakers, and printers. Even network-connected devices like the Xbox 360 appear in the Devices page of PC settings.

You also have a toggle switch available for prohibiting device software from automatically downloading updates while using a metered data connection.

Wireless

The Wireless page contains toggle switches for Airplane mode (not entirely useful on the desktop) and Wi-Fi.

Ease of Access

Selecting the Ease of Access page first presents you with a toggle for High contrast and "Make everything on your screen bigger". Making everything bigger changes not only text size, but nearly every other on-screen element (even the Start screen tiles). While enlarging screen elements only changes the Windows 8 UI, High contrast affects the desktop as well.

The next option is used to select the Windows + Volume Up keyboard shortcut binding. The choices are Narrator, Magnifier, On-Screen Keyboard, or Nothing. You can also adjust the duration that notifications remain on-screen anywhere from five sections up to five minutes. Finally, the thickness of the flashing text cursor can be adjusted from one pixel up to 20 pixels.

Sync your settings

We all have different comfort levels when it comes to what gets communicated into the cloud. The Sync your settings pane makes it possible to disable every Windows 8 sync feature, or to dial in exactly what gets synced. The individual options include Windows 8 UI and Desktop personalization settings (separately), passwords, Ease of Access settings, Language preferences, App settings (including in-app purchases), browser history and bookmarks, and the ambiguous “Other Windows settings” that lists “File Explorer, mouse, and more” as being affected.

Finally, you can enable or disable syncing over metered connections. If you choose to allow this behavior, there's another toggle to sync over metered connections, even when roaming.

HomeGroup

This page has separate toggles for sharing Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, Printers, and devices with your HomeGroup. There is another toggle for networked media devices like TVs and consoles.

You also get access to the HomeGroup membership code, along with an option to remove your PC from the HomeGroup.

Windows Update

Pending Windows updates and a button to "Check for update now" show up in the Windows Update pane. Patches are usually applied according to a maintenance schedule, but you can manually initiate them by clicking the number of available updates.

The second time we see Windows 8's UI fall back to the desktop is if you select "Choose which important updates you want to install", which opens the Windows Update module in the Control Panel.

One of the first realities that power users will need to accept is that everything about the traditional Windows experience, which we're all pretty familiar with, is now contained within an app. That is to say the Desktop and every application running on it is treated as one of the Windows 8 UI's apps. The Desktop can even be launched from the Start screen, just like any other app.

As bizarre as that sounds, there isn't much fundamentally different in the Windows 8 Desktop than there was under Windows 7. Aside from the missing Start menu, Windows 8 does away with the Aero theme, it adds a ribbon-style file menu to File Explorer, and it features an enhanced (and also simplified) Task Manager.

Start Menu

Alas, the Start button and its associated pop-up menu didn't make the cut for Windows 8. We know that the Start screen replaces the Start menu, but what about the Start button? Although there isn't a Start button attached to the taskbar in Windows 8, if you move your mouse cursor to the bottom-left corner, a sneaky auto-hide Start button appears.

The button is actually an accurate representation of your Start screen layout. If you move your tiles and groups around, the little squares on the hidden Start button change accordingly, too.

Aero

By ditching Aero, windows no longer appear to be made of translucent glass. Also missing are the drop shadows, which conveyed depth in Windows Vista and 7.

Instead, the Windows 8 taskbar and window borders are flat and square. Those borders now take on solid colors, while the taskbar transparency is toned-down to the point of being barely opaque.

Though the Aero theme is no more, Windows 8 retains its Snap, Peek, and Shake features, which were originally introduced as Aero Snap, Aero Peek, and Aero Shake.

Dragging a window by its title bar to either side of the screen still snaps it, maximizing it to one-half of the desktop.

Hovering the mouse cursor over any taskbar icon still generates a thumbnail preview of that application's windows and/or tabs, and shaking a window still minimizes all other windows.

File Explorer

File Explorer is Windows 8's reworked file manager, formerly known as Windows Explorer. The new file manager gains a ribbon-style file menu and new Quick Access Toolbar.

The Quick Access Toobar is essentially a set of small icons for common file manager operations. It sits right in the window title bar, directly to the right of the app icon. By default, the File Explorer's Quick Access Toolbar sports the Properties and New Folder icons, though Undo, Redo, Delete, and Rename can also be added.

The File menu pops out, somewhat like an upside-down Start menu, to reveal the options to "Open new window", "Open command prompt", "Open Windows PowerShell", Delete History, Help, and Close. Other than Close, all menu items have sub-menus with additional options like opening the command prompt as an administrator.

The remaining menu labels, Home, Share, and View, pop-out a ribbon-style menu with their own options. Double-clicking on any of them causes the pop-out ribbon to dock and remain open. The far end of the file menu strip has an arrow button to expand or minimize the ribbon, next to a Help icon that launches Windows Help and Support.

The navigation bar still contains controls for stepping back, forward, and up a directory, as well as a location and search boxes. Likewise, the left-hand pane remains mostly the same as in Windows 7, containing links to Favorites, Libraries, Homegroup, Computer, and Network.

The status bar, which sits at the bottom of the File Manager window, lists the total number of files in a given directory on the far left side. The far right hosts buttons that switch items in the window to a Details view (a vertical list with file information) or large thumbnails.

All told, we're putting Microsoft's new File Explorer in our column of pros favoring Windows 8. Unlike other areas of the operating system, this feature offers power users more control in a cleaner, high-customizable package.

Task Manager

The simplified default view in Windows 8's Task Manager only lists the name of currently-open applications. Simply highlight one and select End Task to kill it. The Task Manager lists desktop applications and Windows 8 UI apps, with nothing distinguishing one from the other.

Although the new Task Manager might look like major downgrade from the previous version, which relayed a lot more information, simply select More details (check the image above) to get all of the old functionality back, plus more.

Better still, Windows 8's Task Manager opens back up in whichever form it was in the last time you closed it. If you're a power user, you won't have to click More details every time you want to look at App history, Performance, or Services.

The Process tab details the resources consumed by each running application, along with background and Windows processes. Sort the list according to any of the horizontally-listed categories, allowing you to identify a piece of software chewing up your CPU cycles, your memory, hard drive space, or network throughput.

The next tab is labeled Performance, and it contains utilization over time graphs for your processor, memory, disk, Bluetooth connection, and Ethernet-based link. Select any of the graphs on the left side of the screen to make them larger on the right, adding more detailed information.

Although the first two tabs don't give you any information you couldn't find in Windows 7's Task Manager (just more, better-organized information), the next tab is completely new. The App history tab lists the total running CPU time, network usage, metered network usage, and the amount of data consumed in updating the live tiles of each Windows 8 UI app.

Next is the Startup tab, which lists all of the apps that launch when Windows 8 boots. This replaces the Startup tab in MSConfig (officially, System Configuration) in Windows Vista and 7. Simply select an item and click Disable to prevent that app from launching at startup.

The Users tab is similar to the Processes tab, but sorted by user account. The Details tab is essentially the old Processes tab from Windows 7's Task Manager, and the Services tab appears to be unchanged.

Microsoft's reworked Task Manager is another Windows 8 advantage, both for the casual Windows user and enthusiasts. Even though it initially launches in a simplified view, a more detailed view clearly surpasses the detail available from Windows 7.

Windows 8 is a tale of duality. Microsoft prepared versions for two incompatible processor architectures. It catered to two distinct input paradigms with a pair of user interfaces. And it enabled two sets of settings.

Fortunately for anyone adverse to all of the newness that Windows 8 introduces, the desktop Control Panel is basically unchanged from Windows 7, and all of the Windows 8 UI settings are segregated by the Charms Bar, far away from the Desktop. A few of the Control Panel's settings were merged, split, and renamed, but there are really only three major changes to discuss: File History, Location Settings, and Desktop Gadgets. The third one is pretty much self-explanatory, since Windows 8 ditches Desktop gadgets altogether.

File History

File History is Microsoft's answer to one of the killer features in Apple's OS X: Time Machine. Yes, Windows finally gets a mechanism to combat the accidentally-deleted file.

Windows 8 File History has to be run from a disk drive separate from the system drive, and it can either be local or networked.

Location Settings

Location Settings is where you go to enable/disable the Windows Location platform, as well as opt in or out of helping improve Microsoft's location services.

At first, two different mechanisms for controlling system settings may seem silly. But it works advantageously for casual and power users. If you only really use your PC to surf the Web and compose email, you should have little trouble getting around in the Windows 8 UI on its own, making the Desktop Control Panel unnecessary. By the same token, enthusiasts with an aversion to the Windows 8 UI have less need for the Windows 8 PC settings, since the familiar Desktop Control Panel is largely unchanged.

Microsoft also provides enough overlapping settings to ensure that either type of user can get by in the environment of their choosing.

When you set the Desktop to be the sidebar app using Windows 8's Snap feature, open applications appear as Peek windows. This lets you switch from the Windows 8 UI app taking up most of the screen to any Desktop application running in the sidebar.

In the example below, I have the Windows 8 UI version of Internet Explorer 10 open to Tom's Hardware as the sidebar app on the right. The Desktop is the main app open on the left, and you can see another instance of IE10, the Control Panel, and Microsoft's File Explorer.

Now, when I slide the separator towards the Desktop to make it the sidebar app, expanding the Window 8 UI version of IE10, the Desktop is represented by Peek windows of my three open apps.

If you have too many Desktop applications open to fit in the sidebar strip, then they start scrolling (unlike Windows 8 UI apps in the Switcher; remember those just disappear).

Beyond the Windows 8 UI-based version of Snap, the Desktop retains its own 50/50 Snap from Windows 7. And, believe it or not, both Snap features can be used together.

Provided that the Desktop is the main app, you can snap Desktop applications to both halves of the main screen. In the shot below, I have the Bing Weather app in the left-hand sidebar, while the Desktop takes up the rest of the space on the right. Within the Desktop, IE10 is snapped to the left, while File Explorer is snapped to the right, making the coveted triple-snap a reality!

Yikes! If a screen like that doesn't exactly get you super-enthused about upgrading, we have some essential tips and tricks to get you back to the Windows experience you already know. The first three tips deconstruct the more radical elements of Windows 8, while the next three get us closer to a Windows 7-like environment.

Buy Local

This one is simple, and it actually cuts out a lot of what might bother enthusiasts about the Windows 8 UI. Using a local account instead of a Windows account means that you cannot use the Windows Store or any Windows UI 8 app not already pre-installed.

Exorcise the Demons

From there, the pursuit of cleanliness compels us to simply uninstall the Windows 8 UI apps that do make their way onto your hard drive by default. With the exception of the Windows Store (which can be un-pinned), all of the pre-installed apps can be uninstalled quite easily. Simply right-click on each tile and choose Uninstall from the App bar. By the time you're done removing everything, your Start screen goes from this...

Get Out Of My Way!

If the Swticher gets in your way every time you jam the mouse into the top-left corner of the screen to hit Internet Explorer's back button or open an application's File menu, then get rid of it. Toggle "Allow switching between recent apps" to Off in the General page of the Windows 8 PC settings. This completely disables the Switcher. Now, only the Start tile appears from the lower-left corner.

Roll Your Own Start Screen

The Windows 8 Start screen doesn't have to drive you crazy. Once you're done eradicating every trace of Microsoft's Windows 8 UI apps, populate your Start screen with the desktop apps you're used to.

If you grew accustomed to hitting the Windows key to open the Start menu, and then conducting a search, you're in luck. This is still possible in Windows 8. Just hit the Windows key and begin typing, the Search Charm automatically kicks in.

Keyboard mavens accustomed to using the Windows key to navigate down a list of pinned applications in Windows 7 can do something similar here as well. Just hit the Windows key and use the arrows to select the tile you're after, then press Enter.

Even better, move the Desktop tile to the top of the first row of tiles. While the Desktop tile is most likely placed on the bottom of the first row by default in order to make it closer to the old Start button, moving it to the top has advantages. By occupying the top spot, pressing the Windows key and hitting Enter takes you right to the Desktop. You basically create a new keyboard shortcut simply by shuffling tiles around. The way tiles are laid out is entirely up to you, much like the pinned section of the old Start menu, so it should be easy to organize them for maximum convenience. This trick works for any app, but if you can't stand the Windows 8 UI, the Desktop app is a particularly appropriate choice for the top spot.

The Start screen is basically a giant board of pinned favorites. If you can get over a little bit of extra cursor distance, you may even find the Start screen to be an upgrade from the Start menu.

Treat The Taskbar Like a Dock

Pin all of your most-used apps to the taskbar. While Windows 95 through Vista separated app launchers from open windows in the taskbar, Windows 7 gave us a combined launcher/window dynamic, much like the Dock in OS X or Ubuntu's Unity Launcher. Those operating systems pre-load their docks chock full of application launchers, giving you the impression that that's how the dock is supposed to be used. In contrast, Windows 7 had a measly three applications in the taskbar by default.

If you truly want to avoid the Windows 8 UI at all costs, loading up the taskbar is probably your best bet.

Bring Back Desktop Icons

But don't stop there. Create some desktop shortcuts as well. Right-click on the desktop and choose Personalize. Then choose "Change desktop icons". Restore the old desktop icons for Computer, your user folder, Network, and Control Panel, since you lost handy access to them via the Start menu.

Now let's try jazzing up the aesthetic aspect a bit. Get rid of that purple theme and default background in the Windows 8 UI, replacing it with something a little cleaner. Black and red with gears; sure, that'll do. Now, change your Desktop personalization settings to a custom wallpaper and window color. Voila. There's something easier to stomach.

This is much closer to the Windows 7 that we knew. Plus we get the better File Explorer, Task Manager, File History, triple-Snap, and improved multi-monitor support through the Charms bar. After our sequence of simple tweaks, anyone who loathes the new tile-based user interface has to look at Windows 8 in a different light.

The user interface formerly known as Metro is heavily inspired by the tile-based UIs of Windows Phone 7, the Xbox 360, and Zune HD. So, the fact that we're now faced with the Windows 8 UI on the desktop isn't completely out of the blue. Microsoft has been pushing this for quite some time.

And yet, many in the enthusiast community are up in arms, labeling Windows 8 little more than a touchscreen interface haphazardly thrown on top of Windows 7. In some ways, it is. But the real truth is that Windows 8 is very much two different operating systems, and your experience depends on how you approach it. If you want a gadget-like experience, Windows 8 is Microsoft's take on the iOS/Android model, and the fundamentals of the Windows 8 UI are exceptionally solid. But only time will tell if Windows 8 can be a player in that market. No doubt we'll be reviewing Windows Phone 8- and Windows RT-based devices to better evaluate the company's execution there. On the other hand, if you're looking for a desktop-oriented Windows experience, it's possible to work around much of what power users claim to loathe.

I Currently Use Windows 7...

What the Windows 8 Desktop has over its predecessor is the updated File Explorer, revamped Task Manager, and new File History feature. However, if you're using a traditional keyboard/mouse-controlled desktop and already own Windows 7, those few features aren't worth the $200 that Microsoft's Windows 8 Pro upgrade will eventually cost. I will, however, be upgrading at the $40 promotional price. If you like what you see, now's the time to jump.

If you already have a Windows 7-based PC, I'll concede that there really are no killer reasons to upgrade to Windows 8 today. It's just not as efficient as Windows 7 for those of us slogging away with a keyboard and mouse. And I'm not so simple that switching around from an Xbox to a PC with a different user interface is going to confuse me.

I'm Shopping For A Laptop...

Increasingly, the laptops you find on store shelves are simply going to include Windows 8. Whether that's a pro or con depends on the input hardware your mobile platform of choice sports. The two Windows 8-based Satellite laptops that Toshiba was kind enough to send over are perfect examples.

Although the Satellite S995 sells with Windows 8 installed, it's clear that Toshiba didn't design the hardware for any specific Windows 8 feature. It's equipped with a standard laptop trackpad, which is more frustrating to use than an actual mouse. So, when desktop users complain about navigating Windows 8 with a mouse, just imagine how frustrating it is with a trackpad.

On the other hand, the Satellite P845t-S4310 was clearly conceptualized with Windows 8 in mind (and I'm not just talking about its touchscreen). Using Windows 8 with the P845t's modern clickpad is an absolute dream. It turns out that you don't need a touchscreen to make Windows 8 come alive; just a touch.

I cannot stress this enough if you're shopping for a Windows 8-based notebook: clickpad, clickpad, clickpad. Windows 8 doesn't play well with old-school laptop trackpads, which suffer from jumpy, laggy gestures.

In fact, I was so impressed with the Satellite P845t-S4310's clickpad that I'm now quite anxious to try out some of the Windows 8-based multi-touch peripherals, such as Logitech's Wireless Touchpad, on my desktop. If some of these Windows 8-compatible add-ons can do for Windows 8 on the desktop what Apple's Magic Trackpad did for my OS X-based Hackintosh, I'm sold.

Windows 8 Versus Android And iOS...

The difference between Microsoft's Windows 8 UI, iOS, and Android is that this latest touch-oriented operating system was clearly built for work. Think about it. Windows 8 managed to avoid the awkward text selection and copy/paste issues that more mobile-focused operating systems had in their early days. Right out of the gate you can snap apps. The on-screen keyboard splits in half for thumb typing, and the app controls are placed along the screen edges.

Windows 8-based devices are meant to be gripped, not held out with one hand and tapped on by the other. You're clearly supposed to perform a lot of input, not just consume content. After getting to use the Windows 8 UI on Toshiba's touchscreen-equipped Satellite, I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on Windows RT devices over the holiday season.

How Does Windows 8 Affect Microsoft In The Marketplace?

Although Microsoft would like you to think that it's creating a seamless experience across devices and form factors, it's not. Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, and the Xbox 360 are all very different platforms, and technical barriers prevent you from, say, playing Xbox games on anything but an Xbox. Windows Phone 8 is just out there on its own. Windows RT apps won't run on Windows 8 unless they're ported to Windows 8. And legacy Windows software won't run on anything except Windows 8. In fact, you can have a copy of an app in Windows 8 and be forced to buy it a second time for your Windows RT-based devices.

Update (11/03/12): We posted an addendum to this review that clarifies the relationship between Windows 8 and Windows RT from the perspectives of developers and end-users. See Windows 8: Clarifying Codecs, Compiling, And Compatibilityfor more.

So yeah, Windows 8 basically just replaces Windows 7. The one thing Microsoft does manage to achieve with Windows 8 (and this was really the point all along) is unifying the interface between all of those disparate pieces of hardware.

The software ecosystem doesn't facilitate compatibility between platforms, unfortunately, but the way in which we interact with those devices is basically the same. Live tiles are replacing windows. That's what's happening, and it's a big deal.

Personal technology is deeply integrated in four areas that the heavy hitters are battling to conquer: PCs, tablets, smartphones, and the TV. Apple has PCs, tablets, and smartphones. But Apple TV is a joke. Google has tablets and smartphones. Chromebooks are not PCs, and Google TV is also a joke. Only Microsoft has troops on the ground in all four theaters, and now it has a consistent user-facing experience for them all.

So, Did Microsoft Hit The Mark?

I have no trouble admitting that I started this story very bearish on Windows 8. But as I went, exploring each of the operating system's features, I grew to like it more and more. For all of the reasons covered in the preceding 13 500 words, we're giving Windows 8 Tom's Hardware Recommended Buy award.

Although a missing Start menu is scaring off many power users, the fact is that Windows 8 does everything Windows 7 does, plus some. If you want a familiar Windows experience on your desktop, Windows 8 makes that possible. All of the software you're used to using works the way it always has under the Windows 8 Desktop app. But Windows 8 also introduces the viability of a true touchscreen-only x86 tablet. Not the ARM-based devices currently dominating the market, but an actual PC tablet. Touchscreen-only Windows 8-based devices may very well be what many in the technology press were hoping the original iPad would be: something able to transcend the consumption model and facilitate true productivity. But because we can't give out our Best of Tom's Hardware award based on potential, Windows 8 receives our Recommended Buy honor instead.

Microsoft's latest may be called Windows 8, but it's far more than Windows 7+1. Love it or hate it, this is the biggest thing to happen to Windows since the Start menu. Hell, it might even outrank the window.