People Don’t Like Change

It’s been a month now since I, like probably over one million others, downloaded and installed Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview. As I wrote at the time, people seemed to either love it or hate it.

The haters seem to hold that opinion because the user interface of Windows 8 is so very different from all the previous versions of Windows from Windows 95 onwards.

I think it’s worth remembering that when Windows 95 was introduced, its user interface was radically different from previous versions of Windows, and there was a similar outcry from people who hated the new interface. Over time, people accepted the change, and now, once again, it seems that many cannot conceive of Windows in any way other than what they are used to.

As for me, after a month of using Windows 8, I am very relaxed about the new user interface. It doesn’t bother me, and I seem to be accomplishing my tasks equally well, albeit in a different way. It is still the fact that, at the moment, I rarely use any of the new Metro applications (except to play the occasional game), but that’s simply because their functionality is not yet on a par with their traditional Desktop equivalents. The only Metro App I have permanently displayed alongside my desktop (using the tile function of Windows 8) is the Calendar App:

On the whole, I like what Microsoft has done to reimagine Windows. The past is another country, they do things differently there. I don’t want to live in the past, I want to look forward to the future.