Windows 8 ... Info and deals that may still work but are past their expiration dates YMMV Professional is available for $69.99 as an Educational purchase ongoing

Quote from BilboFraggins : Looks like I touched a nerve, but let's go over your points: The switch to Macs is exaggerated. Mac sales have in fact dropped 21% in the last year and Mac Pro sales have been discontinued temporarily in the EU.Link [techcrunch.com]. If anything, the popularity of iOS (read iPhone and iPad) is cannibalizing Mac sales. I understand the average user very well and this is why the Metro UI brings all the apps you would commonly use to the forefront than having to use the Start menu to launch a browser and find email. Notifications are built in to make it easier to get to information. This is all copied from iOS and Android, so if anything Microsoft learned from Apple and Google to make an easier interface for the average user. There is no need for Shutdown with the introduction of the Sleep function. Power consumption is minimal (a few watts), time to a usable screen is faster and you don't lose any session information when recovering from sleep. If you've used an iPad, Android tablet, heck even a phone, let's hear how many times you actually Power down or Shut down your phone?? The Metro UI strategy is to unify the experience for Phone, Tablet, XBox and PC without having to use a different interface for different. Like many have already posted and included in the OP (for the lazy), there are plenty of Start replacement options that are either free or a few dollars.. I won't respond to the DOS comments from others because clearly those who make such statements are not power users. Like always, there is no need to upgrade if you don't like the interface. There are tons of guides for how to go back to Windows 7. In fact, Microsoft still supports Windows XP until April 8, 2014. How much more can a company do to keep it's user base happy?? For those complaining with the "if it ain't broke..." excuse, Microsoft is not in the business of sitting on a product forever and needs to innovate to stay in business. Innovation and change only happen when you challenge the "But this is the way we always did it..."

You are making reasonable points, but having now used (and summarily discarded) Windows 8 for two separate computers, my chief issue with your argument is that Windows 8 is incredibly unintuitive. I had no idea how to shut down my computer or sleep it; I had to look it up on Google, and I worked in IT for 7 years, administering Windows, OSX, and Linux boxes.

For someone who has been a power user for most of their life, Windows 8 is an incredibly frustrating experience. It shatters old conventions and gives the user no guidance as to what the new convention is. To run the command prompt with administrator privileges (something any power user has to do frequently) I had to switch to desktop, open an explorer window, browse to Windows/System32, and right click on Command Prompt to give it elevated privileges. In Windows 7, the command prompt is two clicks away from the environment I start on.

I see Windows 8 in much the same way that I saw Vista: the back-end improvements are manifold and worthwhile, but the front-end is sluggish and inelegant. I shouldn't have to install 3rd-party apps to emulate the environment I've been working in for the past 20 years. If MSFT is really out to switch the interface entirely, Windows 8 SHOULD have been a transitionary OS, with full Windows-7 desktop functionality along with Metro. That would have let me handle my power tasks easily while acclimating to the new way of doing things.

And don't even get me started on the UEFI / Secure Boot fiasco.