It just doesn't scale for serious work
I do consultancy and support for design teams (web/2d/3d/print/animation/video) They uses a variety of applications and file types. Not only do these guys use applications that need to be able to open and edit multiple file types, more often than not, they use different applications on the same files at different stages of their workflow . Everything I've seen so far with Windows 8 just stops their workflow stone dead. How do 'tiles' help these guys in any way whatsoever?
I recently cloned a typical 3D animator's machine (Office 2010 Pro/Adobe CS6 Master Suite/ Autodesk 3DS Max/Maya and sundry apps, plugins and support files) to see if Window 8 would be any use. Even after uninstalling all of the Windows 8 consumer junk, his 'apps' window still needed to be scrolled 14 times to see all his relevant apps. Of course many of the 'apps' were help files. tutorials texts & videos along with quite a few dedicated support utilities but all that was lumped into a flat 14 page horizontal scroller (on a 4K!! screen). What an incredible waste of screen estate In Windows 7, especially when all of that was neatly represented in 4 inches of screen and all of it was available with only 2-3 clicks of the mouse. Not only that, with a nested folder structure, it was easy to spot links between applications and support files. The flat file system just creates a wash that's much harder to distinguish the relevant from the not. If you attempt to simplify the app menu to only include apps then where do you put the relevant support files and how do you link them back to the original application and how do you link apps and support files that are needed for workflow?
There's a huge difference between pottering about with a few free apps with the Win 8 preview version and trying to run your real apps in a real work situation.
Windows 8 is shockingly bad for anything other than doing a bit of web browsing, checking the weather and tapping out the odd email / office doc. If you want Windows 8 to do any more than deal with a handful of apps look elsewhere! It just doesn't scale for serious work.
Still, at least I've got a massive amount of training ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H un-learning work out of it if nothing else.
Perhaps I've missed a trick or two... Please let me know...
