On 2012-08-16 4:31 PM, Jean Parrot -> Alan Zisman wrote:   
    JP> Greetings, Alan.   
    AZ>> I miss the old-style Start Menu.... I guess the question needs to be if   
    AZ>> you're running it entirely in Desktop mode, why bother? Are there any   
    AZ>> improvements over Win7 that make you prefer the newer OS version?   
      
    JP> You can not stop progress and W-8 is part of it. Why bother ? It makes   
    JP> greater use of RAM thus is quicker, it uses RAM in a more logical way.   
    JP> On my Acer desktop, it boots in 31 seconds to the Start menu, I hit   
    JP> Enter and I am in a quicker mode than W-7.   
      
    JP> Lots of users on the W-8 forum have also voiced this opinion, miss the   
    JP> Start menu. Granted, one has to know the spelling of the command and   
    JP> type it in when one wants to run an app, anywhere on the Start menu,   
    JP> type Word and it comes on screen. Not beyond the average bear and surely   
    JP> not you as I can do it. All in all, an improvement over any previous OS   
    JP> even Vista that I was quite happy with. In the old Start menu, one had   
    JP> to click on a line that was like an icon for a shortcut to an app.   
      
    JP> The W-8 forum is full of either opinion, you like it or not. I am on the   
    JP> "like" side as W-8 runs all my old programmes. I will keep W-7 on my   
    JP> older laptops, G41 Thinkpads. A matter of cost as W-8 is $39.90 per   
    JP> machine, hey ! I am on a pension. ;-)   
      
    JP> Then, the main argument is that it should lead one to buy a smart-phone,   
    JP> a touch screen or a tablet. None of these I own. I just canceled both   
    JP> our Rogers cell subscriptions, see how backward we are ?   
      
    JP> This being said, I think that the Surf Ace is interesting. Just this   
    JP> afternoon, I was watching somebody type on an i Pad, tee ! hee ! She was   
    JP> for ever backspacing and not able to touch-type, that does not feel like   
    JP> a keyboard at all, I had a go at one a few weeks ago, the Surface has a   
    JP> clicking KB, tactile.   
      
    JP> Sorry for being so verbose, you asked for it. :-) My last argument is   
    JP> that I need a challenge lately. W-8 was not, Surface might be.   
      
   Performance improvements are always welcome. (Similarly, I've been suggesting   
   to Mac-owners currently running last year's OS X 7.x Lion that they upgrade to   
   this year's OS X 8.x Mountain Lion, primarily for performance improvements).   
      
   When I bought my iPad 2 yrs ago, I got a bluetooth keyboard with it - but   
   ended up returning the keyboard (unopened) to the store.... the virtual   
   keyboard - while not as usable as a physical keyboard - was much better than   
   I'd thought it would be; good enough for the light-use typing that is all I   
   ever do on it. (Other people's experience, of course, will vary - I gather   
   that add-on keyboards are among the most-popular tablet additions).   
      
   I'm not a fan of typing program names into a search field to start them up -   
   either in Windows or on the Mac - on the one hand, it feels too much like DOS,   
   but more important to me, I tend to collect lots of little pieces of software   
   for various functions... and forget I have them unless I can see their   
   name/icon on a menu or list. The result - I suspect that the Metro Start   
   screen (I know that MS has dropped the name 'Metro') - like the Dock in Mac OS   
   X - will be useful for folks that have a small/medium collection of programs,   
   and will become less and less useful as the number of installed programs rises.   
      
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