I wanted to give some feedback on my experience with Windows 8 in general: Background on my relationship with Windows: I have been using Windows since 3.1. I have been Microsoft's first/ best customer- basically I'm the one lined up the first day a new OS comes out ready to purchase it. It did it with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows 7. Windows XP was the best thing Microsoft offered very honestly. Intuitive and quick. I installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview and it was such a complete fail that I had to uninstall it. I should have given Microsoft feedback then but I just didn't. I thought surely you guys would fix glaring issues. You did not. I bought Windows 8 because of the extremely cheap upgrade price- otherwise I would not have done it (I also thought that some things would be fixed but nope- they were not). I am writing this now because I know 8.1 is coming out and I want to make sure you are looking at all the things that need to be fixed. I told many people after the Consumer Preview came out that 8 would be a complete train wreck/ fail and I see it is from all the reviews and crashing PC sales. When you have Jay Leno on the Tonight Show making fun of it- it is not good. The PC industry relies on Microsoft as well to get it right- you guys have let them down. I just don't see how you got it so wrong guys. You have done a great job for a very long time. Someone needs to be fired at Microsoft for letting the current version out. I'm very serious about that. You don't see this kind of fail at Apple. Someone is just not paying attention and you guys need to figure out what needs to be fixed to make sure it does not happen again. Didn't you do testing with business users and consumers? The current iteration says you did not. Issues needing to be fixed: Add the Start button back and don't just have it link to the "Start" page. You need to have it in the same form as previous versions where there is a program list and access to all the different things that users used to have access to. Boot to Desktop. I have a desktop and do not want to use the "Start" page. I spend 99% of my time in Desktop mode. Or change the Start page so I WANT to use it. In it's current form I hate it. If you guys had the Start screen experience right I in theory wouldn't have to use my Desktop. Shut down. This is the biggest fail I have ever seen in the history of history. Seriously guys- I had to Google to find out how to turn off my PC. Complete Fail. You can either add this to the Start menu like before or add something to the corner of the desktop. Just do something. You should never have this hidden under 4 steps. The current way is so unintuitive and I'm sure it is a very serious "turn off" to users. Fix it. The Charm bar on the side of my PC is hard to access. I have a Dell touchscreen for my desktop and I have to continually swipe to try to get it to come up. Fail. I always end up using my mouse to access this. And I HATE having to position my cursor just right to access it. So completely a fail. I'd prefer the charm feature to just die to be very honest and be replaced by the start button where it used to be. There is no value add to having it. I need to be able to quickly and intuitively access my information. The charm bar is neither of these. You shouldn't have to think about where to go to in the charm area for something. Bring back the old way to Search in the Start menu. The current way is the ultimate in frustration. Some of the ways you have to do a search for certain things that are now hidden in Windows 8 that were not hidden in Windows 7 is crazy. I've even had a Microsoft support person say this. You guys have made something so easy much more difficult and unintuitive. Having to actually type in a search term to find certain parts of Windows: FAIL! There should be a case study written about that on what not to do in an OS. Mind boggling to the max. I don't even know what to say. Left side bar in the Start Page view to bring up program list. I'm speechless on this one. It is so ridiculous the way it is now I don't even know where to begin. Mind boggling complete full FAIL. Having to scroll to the corner in a very small space (itself very unintuitive)- the go over a little and then go down? And if you mess up with how you move your cursor you have to start over because everything collapses. And you can't access it by touch on a desktop- you have to use your mouse cursor because the activation area is so far in the corner. Really? LOL guys. Who designed this craziness? This is not intuitive! The pics are so small I sometimes can't even see what I need to choose. I just don't know what to say. You went from having clear program icons at the bottom of the screen to quickly and easily go from program to program to this. No. I don't know how you need to change this but it needs to change. There needs to be a static element and there needs to be clear icons for the program choices. I am telling you Microsoft- if this is not changed you will lose your customers. No one wants to deal with the current way of doing this. It is a complete FAIL. More on this: You have to navigate this ridiculous setup to try and close things running in the background. So unintuitive. And frustrating to the max. I have to find my app then right click and click close? LOL. No. Go to the corner. X out. Done. This x out feature has to be brought back and integrated into the apps. It HAS to be. This is what makes Windows (the old Windows) so great. And you guys killed it with 8! :( I feel like I'm trapped when I open an app- and therefore I use the apps MUCH less. I'm in the Internet Explorer App. I need Excel. I have to: click on the bottom left corner to bring up the start menu- click desktop and find Excel. I could do it through the Start menu but it is so busy that it's hard to find things quickly like I can on my desktop. Now I need to go back to IE. Top corner- over- down- squint to find IE. click. Ugg! What did ya'll do? No! So frustrating - so not Microsoft. You have to design the interface so everything flows. You should not have to even think. I need to be able to click back and forth quickly between apps. Or use touch. Windows 8 is supposed to be about touch and the current setup is so crazy horrible I can't use it like it has the potential to be used. Please put some thought into how to better do this. You guys could really make this great if you wanted to and even make it better than Apple. There needs to be some serious thinking being done. Keywords: Quick. Intuitive. You do this for your customers and you have them as loyal customers like you did with me and every other version of Windows. Touch- somehow things in your programs need to be more touch friendly. I don't want to have to touch the edges of my screen. Could you design something where a quick double touch anywhere on the screen brings up an open program list to toggle between programs? I just feel totally out of control with Windows 8. Put the user back in control. Larger touch friendly buttons? Everything is designed for a mouse clicker. Change this. IE app- I really hate this app. App stability: Horrible. This needs to improve. The current way on the app screen to have to right click (somewhere in the "grey" area? Really?) to bring up a bar at the bottom then click on something again to control it is so unintuitive. This is one of the worst features of Windows 8. I think whoever designed this particular thing should not have a job at Microsoft. I don't know how to improve this but it needs to be improved. You have to think here. FAIL. It is your job to come up with an intuitive interface so the customer can quickly get to things and feel confident and in control. That is why Microsoft has been successful in the past. You have previously done a great job for your customers. I just feel lost- even after using the system for awhile. Make things easier. You guys really need to put a lot of thought into this interface. Make it simple! The process to add a program as an app to the start screen is ridiculous. If you have to add a couple floating buttons to the Start screen- do it. Maybe "add an app to the start screen". This would make the user feel in control. Good things: System stability. Apps: I think Microsoft has a win with the app approach. It just needs to be tweaked so that I want to use it. Allow me to group types of apps into folders of some sort maybe. I don't want to have to think when I go to access stuff. Right now I have to scan a wall of apps. It's too much. And again- allow me to x out of an app. Allow me to quickly switch between apps in an easier way. Bottom line: Make it more intuitive. Make the user feel like they are IN CONTROL. Make me want to LOVE to use it- not research how to use every element. There is clear feedback users hate to use Windows 8. You do this and you have a WIN. This is what Microsoft is guys- ya'll can do it. I love Microsoft because of your open nature unlike Apple. Make me WANT to buy your product. Take out all these unintuitive and frustrating roadblocks you've put into Windows 8. You guys have the chance to be the best with the touch interface. DO IT! And advertise how you have changed. Damage has been done but you can turn it around. This is the only OS you have come out with that I've told friends and family NOT to buy in it's current iteration. Give me reasons to change my mind and recommend it.

Jim, Many thanks for this, I have just tried it and it works fine. It does take quite a while to upload large files to OneDrive, but this is much better than have to reduce each picture file in Photoshop before sending, which is what I was doing before. I can also pick the photos up on my phone. An excellent solution thanks. Michael

...... I have one major irritation with Windows 8 Mail (I can't reduce the size of photo files when I send them in emails).... Hi, Michael Perhaps you don't use Outlook.com for a Live/Hotmail e-mail account but if you do, there is an even better solution to your problem. You don't have to downsize your photos at all. Just upload your photos on a OneDrive folder that comes with a Microsoft ID (which you also can use to log onto Windows 8.x). Then when composing an e-mail using Outlook.com, on the Insert menu dropdown, pick Share from OneDrive. A link to any photos inserted will be given at the end of your e-mail along with modest-sized thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnail gives the recipient of your e-mail access to the full picture. And they only download the pictures if they want to see them. You don't send humongous e-mails and your recipients do not have to receive them but they can still get hi-res pictures to view on big screens or print out, if they want. In the various phone stores (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, you can also find the Xim app by Microsoft Research. It allows you to temporarily share photos from your phone via the cloud with links that automatically disappear after some time limit. Haven't tried it yet myself but sounds interesting.

I did not like Windows 8 when it first came out because it was so different to any previous version of the operating system, but now I am a convert and love it. Microsoft have taken the brave step of designing a totally new operating system which I think is fresh and exciting to use. I can understand everyone wanting to stick with something they are familiar with, but things move on and everything around us is changing so we need take time learn something new. I even bought a Windows 8 phone and now have my mail, calendar and emails synced on a phone that looks like my desktop start screen. Microsoft have outdone Apple by moving to a system with a different look and feel that is the coolest thing around. However they have totally failed to exploit this by ignoring the views of their customers. As usual they have relied on their position in the market place to impose a new system on everyone without nurturing feedback. I have one major irritation with Windows 8 Mail (I can't reduce the size of photo files when I send them in emails) but I have been unable feed this back to the designers of the system. Instead Microsoft has chosen to use forums like this where people can share their views with others but I wonder if anyone in Microsoft HQ ever bothers reading them. I would like to shout the praises of Windows 8 as well as pointing out a few irritations but no-one at Microsoft seems interested.

Well put !! I think that Microsoft as a company dropped the ball with Win 8. It's interface and usability defies what would be a great product. Our school system voted to buy Apple systems and this was a vote of the students and faculty. They found the constant crashes, uneasy to use programs and the like kept those who used Win 8 .1 frustrated. I have set up 3 desktop Win 8 systems. 2 had to be returned to the place of purchase because I could not register them and get updates. The system I upgraded failed miserably, the desktop kept waking up from sleep mode, would not allow me to do any minor upkeep maintenance like disk clean-up. After 29 days, I finally had enough and went back to Win 7 Home Premium which works ok. Remember Windows ME and Vista?? My feelings are that Windows 8 will be running down that same place to obscurity. I will never own a Windows 8 system. Really enjoyed your post - thanks ! Rob S.

I have only been using desktop computers since 1975. For 20 or more years, computers kept ahead with system developers' ambitions. DOS was OK - Windows 3.1 was a revelation - Windows 95 was brilliant (apart from its delight in crashing whenever something important was being worked on). 98 was the best - 2000 was hopeless yet again. XP was actually OK: and Windows 7 was not too bad (although Office was turned inside out in a mad effort to damage the World economy). But Windows 8 is the absolute pits. Once again,Microsoft has cost the world economy a small fortune by forcing reluctant customers to learn an entirely new system from scratch. And even now, underneath it all, when you fight your way through the baffling friendly front end,it still look like Windows 95. And there is nothing we can do about it. The system might well be fine for people who have nothing better to do with their lives than play with operating systems. But W8 is an exercise in vanity by developers who live in their own intellectual bubble. MS recently laid of about 5000 out of about 30000 employees (allegedly). Frankly, although I do sympathise with those unfortunate people individually, I think they should all stop messing about with things that work fine as they are. Probably they should have laid off 25000 and kept 5000 on security duties. This new computer must go back. But I fear for the future. From my new copy of MS Outlook, I still cannot work out how to send an email from the account I want to use. No doubt I'll get there in the end: but it should be EASY by now.

Windows 8 Feedback

Anonymous

I wanted to give some feedback on my experience with Windows 8 in general:

Background on my relationship with Windows: I have been using Windows since 3.1. I have been Microsoft's first/ best customer- basically I'm the one lined up the first day a new OS comes out ready to purchase it. It did it with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows 7. Windows XP was the best thing Microsoft offered very honestly. Intuitive and quick.

I installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview and it was such a complete fail that I had to uninstall it. I should have given Microsoft feedback then but I just didn't. I thought surely you guys would fix glaring issues. You did not. I bought Windows 8 because of the extremely cheap upgrade price- otherwise I would not have done it (I also thought that some things would be fixed but nope- they were not). I am writing this now because I know 8.1 is coming out and I want to make sure you are looking at all the things that need to be fixed. I told many people after the Consumer Preview came out that 8 would be a complete train wreck/ fail and I see it is from all the reviews and crashing PC sales. When you have Jay Leno on the Tonight Show making fun of it- it is not good. The PC industry relies on Microsoft as well to get it right- you guys have let them down. I just don't see how you got it so wrong guys. You have done a great job for a very long time. Someone needs to be fired at Microsoft for letting the current version out. I'm very serious about that. You don't see this kind of fail at Apple. Someone is just not paying attention and you guys need to figure out what needs to be fixed to make sure it does not happen again. Didn't you do testing with business users and consumers? The current iteration says you did not.

Issues needing to be fixed:

Add the Start button back and don't just have it link to the "Start" page. You need to have it in the same form as previous versions where there is a program list and access to all the different things that users used to have access to.
Boot to Desktop. I have a desktop and do not want to use the "Start" page. I spend 99% of my time in Desktop mode. Or change the Start page so I WANT to use it. In it's current form I hate it. If you guys had the Start screen experience right I in theory wouldn't have to use my Desktop.
Shut down. This is the biggest fail I have ever seen in the history of history. Seriously guys- I had to Google to find out how to turn off my PC. Complete Fail. You can either add this to the Start menu like before or add something to the corner of the desktop. Just do something. You should never have this hidden under 4 steps. The current way is so unintuitive and I'm sure it is a very serious "turn off" to users. Fix it.
The Charm bar on the side of my PC is hard to access. I have a Dell touchscreen for my desktop and I have to continually swipe to try to get it to come up. Fail. I always end up using my mouse to access this. And I HATE having to position my cursor just right to access it. So completely a fail. I'd prefer the charm feature to just die to be very honest and be replaced by the start button where it used to be. There is no value add to having it. I need to be able to quickly and intuitively access my information. The charm bar is neither of these. You shouldn't have to think about where to go to in the charm area for something.
Bring back the old way to Search in the Start menu. The current way is the ultimate in frustration. Some of the ways you have to do a search for certain things that are now hidden in Windows 8 that were not hidden in Windows 7 is crazy. I've even had a Microsoft support person say this. You guys have made something so easy much more difficult and unintuitive. Having to actually type in a search term to find certain parts of Windows: FAIL! There should be a case study written about that on what not to do in an OS. Mind boggling to the max. I don't even know what to say.
Left side bar in the Start Page view to bring up program list. I'm speechless on this one. It is so ridiculous the way it is now I don't even know where to begin. Mind boggling complete full FAIL. Having to scroll to the corner in a very small space (itself very unintuitive)- the go over a little and then go down? And if you mess up with how you move your cursor you have to start over because everything collapses. And you can't access it by touch on a desktop- you have to use your mouse cursor because the activation area is so far in the corner. Really? LOL guys. Who designed this craziness? This is not intuitive! The pics are so small I sometimes can't even see what I need to choose. I just don't know what to say. You went from having clear program icons at the bottom of the screen to quickly and easily go from program to program to this. No. I don't know how you need to change this but it needs to change. There needs to be a static element and there needs to be clear icons for the program choices. I am telling you Microsoft- if this is not changed you will lose your customers. No one wants to deal with the current way of doing this. It is a complete FAIL.

More on this: You have to navigate this ridiculous setup to try and close things running in the background. So unintuitive. And frustrating to the max. I have to find my app then right click and click close? LOL. No. Go to the corner. X out. Done. This x out feature has to be brought back and integrated into the apps. It HAS to be. This is what makes Windows (the old Windows) so great. And you guys killed it with 8! :( I feel like I'm trapped when I open an app- and therefore I use the apps MUCH less. I'm in the Internet Explorer App. I need Excel. I have to: click on the bottom left corner to bring up the start menu- click desktop and find Excel. I could do it through the Start menu but it is so busy that it's hard to find things quickly like I can on my desktop. Now I need to go back to IE. Top corner- over- down- squint to find IE. click. Ugg! What did ya'll do? No! So frustrating - so not Microsoft. You have to design the interface so everything flows. You should not have to even think. I need to be able to click back and forth quickly between apps. Or use touch. Windows 8 is supposed to be about touch and the current setup is so crazy horrible I can't use it like it has the potential to be used. Please put some thought into how to better do this. You guys could really make this great if you wanted to and even make it better than Apple. There needs to be some serious thinking being done. Keywords: Quick. Intuitive. You do this for your customers and you have them as loyal customers like you did with me and every other version of Windows.

Touch- somehow things in your programs need to be more touch friendly. I don't want to have to touch the edges of my screen. Could you design something where a quick double touch anywhere on the screen brings up an open program list to toggle between programs? I just feel totally out of control with Windows 8. Put the user back in control. Larger touch friendly buttons? Everything is designed for a mouse clicker. Change this.
IE app- I really hate this app.
App stability: Horrible. This needs to improve.
The current way on the app screen to have to right click (somewhere in the "grey" area? Really?) to bring up a bar at the bottom then click on something again to control it is so unintuitive. This is one of the worst features of Windows 8. I think whoever designed this particular thing should not have a job at Microsoft. I don't know how to improve this but it needs to be improved. You have to think here. FAIL. It is your job to come up with an intuitive interface so the customer can quickly get to things and feel confident and in control. That is why Microsoft has been successful in the past. You have previously done a great job for your customers. I just feel lost- even after using the system for awhile. Make things easier. You guys really need to put a lot of thought into this interface. Make it simple! The process to add a program as an app to the start screen is ridiculous. If you have to add a couple floating buttons to the Start screen- do it. Maybe "add an app to the start screen". This would make the user feel in control.

Good things:

System stability.

Apps: I think Microsoft has a win with the app approach. It just needs to be tweaked so that I want to use it. Allow me to group types of apps into folders of some sort maybe. I don't want to have to think when I go to access stuff. Right now I have to scan a wall of apps. It's too much. And again- allow me to x out of an app. Allow me to quickly switch between apps in an easier way.

Bottom line: Make it more intuitive. Make the user feel like they are IN CONTROL. Make me want to LOVE to use it- not research how to use every element. There is clear feedback users hate to use Windows 8. You do this and you have a WIN. This is what Microsoft is guys- ya'll can do it. I love Microsoft because of your open nature unlike Apple. Make me WANT to buy your product. Take out all these unintuitive and frustrating roadblocks you've put into Windows 8. You guys have the chance to be the best with the touch interface. DO IT! And advertise how you have changed. Damage has been done but you can turn it around. This is the only OS you have come out with that I've told friends and family NOT to buy in it's current iteration. Give me reasons to change my mind and recommend it.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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43 answers

Anonymous

2014-12-21T14:27:58+00:00

Jim,

Many thanks for this, I have just tried it and it works fine. It does take quite a while to upload large files to OneDrive, but this is much better than have to reduce each picture file in Photoshop before sending, which is what I was doing before. I can also pick the photos up on my phone.

An excellent solution thanks.

Michael
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Anonymous

2014-12-20T23:57:58+00:00

...... I have one major irritation with Windows 8 Mail (I can't reduce the size of photo files when I send them in emails)....

Hi, Michael

Perhaps you don't use Outlook.com for a Live/Hotmail e-mail account but if you do, there is an even better solution to your problem.

You don't have to downsize your photos at all. Just upload your photos on a OneDrive folder that comes with a Microsoft ID (which you also can use to log onto Windows 8.x). Then when composing an e-mail using Outlook.com, on the Insert menu dropdown, pick Share from OneDrive. A link to any photos inserted will be given at the end of your e-mail along with modest-sized thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnail gives the recipient of your e-mail access to the full picture. And they only download the pictures if they want to see them. You don't send humongous e-mails and your recipients do not have to receive them but they can still get hi-res pictures to view on big screens or print out, if they want.

In the various phone stores (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, you can also find the Xim app by Microsoft Research. It allows you to temporarily share photos from your phone via the cloud with links that automatically disappear after some time limit. Haven't tried it yet myself but sounds interesting.
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Anonymous

2014-12-20T17:49:46+00:00

I did not like Windows 8 when it first came out because it was so different to any previous version of the operating system, but now I am a convert and love it.

Microsoft have taken the brave step of designing a totally new operating system which I think is fresh and exciting to use. I can understand everyone wanting to stick with something they are familiar with, but things move on and everything around us is changing so we need take time learn something new. I even bought a Windows 8 phone and now have my mail, calendar and emails synced on a phone that looks like my desktop start screen.

Microsoft have outdone Apple by moving to a system with a different look and feel that is the coolest thing around. However they have totally failed to exploit this by ignoring the views of their customers. As usual they have relied on their position in the market place to impose a new system on everyone without nurturing feedback. I have one major irritation with Windows 8 Mail (I can't reduce the size of photo files when I send them in emails) but I have been unable feed this back to the designers of the system. Instead Microsoft has chosen to use forums like this where people can share their views with others but I wonder if anyone in Microsoft HQ ever bothers reading them.

I would like to shout the praises of Windows 8 as well as pointing out a few irritations but no-one at Microsoft seems interested.
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Anonymous

2014-12-13T01:31:03+00:00

Well put !! I think that Microsoft as a company dropped the ball with Win 8. It's interface and usability defies what would be a great product. Our school system voted to buy Apple systems and this was a vote of the students and faculty. They found the constant crashes, uneasy to use programs and the like kept those who used Win 8 .1 frustrated. I have set up 3 desktop Win 8 systems. 2 had to be returned to the place of purchase because I could not register them and get updates. The system I upgraded failed miserably, the desktop kept waking up from sleep mode, would not allow me to do any minor upkeep maintenance like disk clean-up. After 29 days, I finally had enough and went back to Win 7 Home Premium which works ok. Remember Windows ME and Vista?? My feelings are that Windows 8 will be running down that same place to obscurity. I will never own a Windows 8 system.

Really enjoyed your post - thanks !

Rob S.
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Anonymous

2014-12-12T19:46:40+00:00

I have only been using desktop computers since 1975. For 20 or more years, computers kept ahead with system developers' ambitions. DOS was OK - Windows 3.1 was a revelation - Windows 95 was brilliant (apart from its delight in crashing whenever something important was being worked on). 98 was the best - 2000 was hopeless yet again. XP was actually OK: and Windows 7 was not too bad (although Office was turned inside out in a mad effort to damage the World economy). But Windows 8 is the absolute pits. Once again,Microsoft has cost the world economy a small fortune by forcing reluctant customers to learn an entirely new system from scratch. And even now, underneath it all, when you fight your way through the baffling friendly front end,it still look like Windows 95. And there is nothing we can do about it.

The system might well be fine for people who have nothing better to do with their lives than play with operating systems. But W8 is an exercise in vanity by developers who live in their own intellectual bubble.

MS recently laid of about 5000 out of about 30000 employees (allegedly). Frankly, although I do sympathise with those unfortunate people individually, I think they should all stop messing about with things that work fine as they are. Probably they should have laid off 25000 and kept 5000 on security duties.

This new computer must go back. But I fear for the future.

From my new copy of MS Outlook, I still cannot work out how to send an email from the account I want to use. No doubt I'll get there in the end: but it should be EASY by now.
Was this answer helpful?

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