I do use the desktop. Not a fan of shortcuts however, but I about have everything in a kind of working order.
I find the first claim hard to believe but if so then I feel kinda empowered. Makes me feel a tad special if a single post somehow frustrates someone more than any change on an Operating System that's been largely unchanged for the modern era. Not many people get to make that claim!
As for the latter you are correct, I forgot that MS had removed it from 7, a curse from having used too many versions of Windows I guess. Metro's Mail client still pales in comparison to Live Mail as well however but I have to cede that point as it should work in windows 8 and is still offered as a free download.
I did see that, I did not know it beforehand. I actually didn't spend much time researching that aspect as it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Truth be told though I don't actually want a Microsoft account at all it's just unfortunately become mandatory more or less if you plan on using the Metro store. Wither way it's good information to know, thanks. I can at least not misrepresent that aspect to others in the future.
When I tried it it just brought up the charm but I did not think of using it in Metro, it does indeed do something I find helpful in Metro, saves me from having to right click and then choose "All Apps." I thank you for the tip but it's still not really what I want.
This is where I'll diverge from some people but one of the things that I personally liked about previous versions of Windows was that I felt it was giving me access to more things at a single click. I know many are fond of keyboard shortcuts and I see a value in having them, that said I don't think of them as replacements for easy access to features, I feel they should be merely an alternative to something that should already be accessible. Whether I use Win+x in Metro or right click and choose "all apps" either way I'm presented with an extra step that did not exist before, assuming we're starting from opening the start menu or having pressed the Windows key to bring it up. Considering I'm almost always using my left hand for something else like drinking or eating or pushing away one of my cats I'm not a fan of feeling like I need to resort to them to get the same speed of a task as the previous os.
That said, I may just stop bitching about that and make a shortcut to the control panel and drag that into my account's start menu folder and be done with it. I've said several times, it's possible to make Windows 8 do what you want it just still baffles me how little out of the box it does right.
You know, I could swear I tried that in Metro IE, I'm wondering if it just flaked out. I'm assuming that when it first launches you into Metro after the tutorial that it's actually still installing stuff, the screen did flicker a few times with the tell tell sound it makes when it's installing a driver, maybe I just picked a really bad time to try that?
Most likely, if there's one thing positive I'd say about Win 8 it's that the performance is perceptibly the same. I had a problem similar with my WLAN card not performing well, it was a Dlink and the solution was to find out what chipset it used, which in my case was an Atheros chipset and find that driver. You might have to do the same and find out who really made your wireless card and get the driver from them.
I don't know why it's seperate but there appears to be nothing new done to it from Windows 7. It's a desktop app too so it doesn't run in Metro.
My one hope for this situation is that it's MS trying to see how many people care about WMC really and perhaps if enough people purchase it they'll decide to do some meaningful work on it again. That's my hope.
