The Verge published a video demonstrating how desktop mode and Office 2013 - a desktop application - work on Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8. The video showed a desktop mode that clearly didn't work well for touch, and even Office 2013, which has a rudimentary touch mode built-in, didn't work properly either. It looked and felt clunky, often didn't respond properly, and even showed touch lag.
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Member since:2005-11-09
Member since:2010-11-04
It works well enough in my testing, though I don't use it exclusively or as my primary OS.
On a laptop or desktop, it basically feels like Windows 7 with a tablet OS bolted on the side. 
[I'm currently running it under Parallels 8 on my MacBook Pro.] The tablet-oriented apps are sometimes a bit awkward under touchpad or mouse control; getting at the "charms" through hotcorners feels like a hack, and activating the app bar through right-click is pretty funky too.
The rest of the OS (Desktop view and desktop apps) still appears to look and work just like Windows 7, with a more "flattened" widget style. If they'd just left in the start menu and booted to desktop mode on non-touch devices, you'd probably see a lot less whinging.
On a tablet, that touch-oriented OS is interesting; I actually rather like it and I'm curious to see how it pans out when real devices hit the market.
On a laptop with a touchscreen, Metro is a little nicer since you can use the gestures like on a pure tablet, but you're still able to use desktop apps with a real keyboard and touchpad.
What's going to be *really* interesting is seeing how things go on hybrid touch/keyboard devices. These exist already in the Android space with things like the ASUS Transformer's keyboard+trackpad dock. iOS has keyboard support but no mouse support, and neither iOS nor Android will run your traditional desktop apps from other operating systems.
Intel-based touch devices will actually run real apps in desktop mode... I can use Git and Visual Studio on the Samsung Series 7 tablet to develop apps -- obviously they're not very touch-friendly, but hook up a monitor and keyboard/mouse and it's a "real computer".
On my Dell Inspiron Duo (mini laptop with a touchscreen that swivels to use in either "laptop" or "thick tablet" mode) I can also do some development, but the screen and keyboard on that particular device are not great. (The Inspiron Duo's fatal flaw is a lack of a video-out connector, so you can't fully "dock" at your desktop by connecting a bigger monitor.)
Of course if Windows RT won't run desktop apps not from Microsoft, the ARM-based devices will be more limited... but they'll still be dockable for Office and web apps.
Member since:2011-02-11
Actually Windows 8 is usable, I'm running it roight now (I never thought I'd say that). You only need to tweak it a lot. For ex. you can enable a local account, uninstall all metro apps, hide the store and disable the hot corners. Then metro becomes an overview of all installed applications and the desktop is like the one in Windows 7 but faster and with a IMO nicer theme. The only thing I'm missing from previous versions is actually "recent files".
Although I'm pretty sure people who don't want to spend some time adapting and tweaking their desktop will hate Windows 8. I think it's really annoying by default.
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Member since:
2010-03-14
I really do believe that Windows 8 is going to be the new WindowsMe. Vista was at least usable.