If you don't want to lose screen space for running applications, use the Auto-hide the taskbar option

Asking us to forget the "start menu" is like asking someone to forget one of their kids. They are trying to reinvent the wheel (start menu) and it isn't working well so far. I have had the Win8 RC for a while. It has some good features (I really like the Google Chrome tile and the features available only to 8 users), but in a production environment this product requires training for a new OS. The total cost of ownership of this product is going to be high. The only calls I really get are from home users wanting to know "is it better than 7", or "we just bought it can you HELP US!", not business customers.

Microsoft acts as if users have no choice but to use the Windows 8 desktop. Alas, no. To my mind the sane business decision would be to have user selectable desktop of Windows 7 like and Metro Windows 8 type. It could be selectable by keyboard or run like a virtual machine, without all the VM overhead. That way users would have had time to learn how to remain productive with the new desktop shell and not suffer a learning curve and lost productivity while they do.
There is still a lot of confusion about the touch screen interface. A large majority of users don't have a touch screen laptop or desktop. That my be reversed in 5 to 7 years, but it isn't true now. The perception exists that without a touchscreen a person is stuck in a productivity degraded mode. That is a problem for Microsoft at least as much as it is for their customer base.

Microsoft reminds me of Lily Tomlin's Ernestine character. To paraphrase the inimitable Ms. Tomline ""We don't care; we don't have to. We're the Microsoft company." If they don't wake up fast that line may be as anachronistic as the original telephone company line.

All the years of mouse dexterity training down the drain :[

I was one of you h8rs when I first played around with this version in the beta days. My opinion remained unchanged well into the retail stage, but this is only because I was so resentful of the fact that Microsoft was forcing us to migrate to a desktop with no start button. Once I got over it and gave the new configuration a chance, I realized windows 8 can be a very productive OS. That is, if you just take a little time to learn where everything is now.

True, it is designed to work best with a touch screen, but many of these advantages are backwards compatible with the traditional mouse and cursor. For instance, if you swipe in from the left, you switch between active apps. No need to return to start screen. If you want to launch a new app, just swipe in from the right (revealing the charms bar) and type the first few letters of the app's name. Still no need to return to start screen. Whether you launch an app from start screen or charms bar, you still only need to swipe in from left to switch back to any previous app.

For those of you lacking a touch screen:

Swipe in from right = Move cursor to top right corner

Swipe in from left = Move cursor to top left corner and click to switch through apps.
Move the cursor down from this position and reveal tiles of all open apps.

8 is Gr8, just give it a chance. ; )

can skim more of your money. If they had left the command set in Vista, Win 7, and Win 8 the same as it was in Win XP all that software and hardware designed to work perfectly with Win XP would work perfectly with them, but Microsoft made a deliberate choice to make them incompatible so that software would not just transfer over and they could now sell you new copies of MS Office that will work properly because the older version of MSO won't work properly with the new versions of Windows. Many businesses have mission critical software and / or hardware that works perfectly with Win XP and there is NO new version that works on Win Vista, Win 7, or Win 8, thus they have NO option but to stay with Win XP. In some cases there are new versions, but that requires a significant outlay of extra cash in a poor economy when staying with what they have continues to work perfectly, so why spend the money just because Microsoft want to rip them off.

I agree with Food for Thought and Gretchen...Windows8 is for tablets and the windows phone, not the middle aged computer user with serious word processing needs.

I am having a hell of a time with this program....everytime I want to cut or paste or print or even continue an e-mail thread, I have to click the windows button and start all over. I found a short-cut chart (ie; control+p = print), but that crap goes back to the dinosaur DOS systems I used in the 1980's but this is retroactive and counter intuitive, not an improvement.

Windows8 is for 8th graders. How 'bout Windows50 for real people who aren't glued to tablets, cell phones and facebook?