If you’re moving up to Windows 8 while both excited by the new possibilities and worried about the massive user interface changes, Thinix has a solution for you. Recently launched, the company’s RetroUI product gives you back your start menu and, if you choose, your standard Windows desktop.

You can even combine the best of both worlds with very Windows 8 desktop tiles, and a more Windows 7 start menu and taskbar.

Source: Thinix

RetroUI’s start menu

RetroUI’s start menu is not exactly what you’ll remember from Windows 7, but it does allow you to quickly access directories and apps in two clicks, pin shortcuts, and quickly access shutdown options.

In addition, the Windows 8 skin allows users to run new Windows Store apps in a window, instead of full-screen, which gives you access to your taskbar and start menu … which means your simple multi-tasking is back.

Thinix also put a few extras into RetroUI, including a “TabletView” mode that the company says bridges the gap between desktop and mobile. Essentially, it’s similar to Mac OS X’s Launchpad, showing all available apps in a clickable full-screen array.

Pricing starts at $4.95 — there is a free trial — and the product is available immediately by download.

Source: Thinkix

RetroUI’s tablet view

Image credits: Thinix

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft released the final build of Windows 8, dubbed “RTM,” to developers and manufacturers last week. So how will it work on your desktop when it lands on Oct. 26?

Based on my tests, not very well. In fact, if you’re still using a desktop PC, you’re probably going to dislike Windows 8.

Microsoft has designed Windows 8 to work across almost all devices, with the exception of smartphones, a nearly one-size-fits-all approach to the operating system. That’s a marked contrast to Apple’s decision to use iOS for tablets and phones, and OS X on desktops.

On top of this, Windows 8 will share a kernel with Windows Phone 8 to make it easier for developers to create apps and games that work for both.

Unfortunately, Windows 8 doesn’t work equally well for all devices. How I work on a desktop is going to be different from how I work on a tablet. Using my fingers to navigate through Windows is a wholly different experience than using a mouse to click on things.

With Windows 8, Microsoft favors tablets, touchscreens, and laptops with modern touchpads. It works very well for these kinds of computers. Traditional desktops with a keyboard and mouse, on the other hand, have been left in the dust.

Desktop issues

True, a major part of the OS is devoted to the traditional Windows desktop. The desktop view is there if you need to run older Windows applications, or if you just want a familiar-looking interface.

But the desktop view isn’t what Microsoft is pushing. Much like Apple’s Mac App Store, there will be a Windows 8 Store available for downloading the new full-screen apps Microsoft is betting heavily on. (Notably, the store won’t offer older Windows programs at all.) These new Windows 8-style apps appear on your computer’s Start screen and run in a full-screen mode without menu bars or toolbars. Microsoft has referred to its Windows Phone and Windows 8 interfaces as “Metro”, but it has ditched the term and not yet given us a replacement, so I’ll refer to it as the “modern” design. Indeed, much of the focus for Windows 8 is on the sleek Start screen (image above).

Now let’s dig into some of desktop issues. (Let us know what other issues you see for the desktop in the comments.)

Dead mouse — Windows 8 isn’t meant for mice — it’s meant for fingers. The spread-out Start screen is more ideal for tapping than clicking, whereas the Start menu in Windows 7 is crammed into a tighter space to make it easier to click individual items. Scrolling using your mouse now moves the screen left and right instead of up and down. Mouse scrolling can be problematic inside some modern apps. Parts of the Bing Weather app, for example, are meant to be scrolled up and down and can interrupt you. (Check out this video for an illustration of this problem.) Basically, scrolling through apps with your fingers is much easier.

Right-clicking — When you right click your mouse in Windows 7, a menu pops up next to where you clicked to give you more options. Right clicking a picture, for example, brings up options like Preview, Cut, Copy, or Delete. Right-clicking a program on the desktop Taskbar gives you lots of helpful options too. But right-click menus go out the window in Windows 8, unless you’re using an old-style desktop app. Now, instead of a menu of options appearing right where you clicked, a limited number of options appear at the bottom of the screen. You now need to move your mouse to the bottom of the screen to select an option, and this gets incredibly tedious in modern apps and on the Start screen.

Small displays — The modern-style Start screen and modern apps look great on tablet screens and small displays, but they can get a little messy on a desktop PC with a large monitor. Modern apps aren’t optimized for larger resolutions, although Microsoft makes it possible to scale apps. Microsoft is preparing Windows 8 for the world where 10- to 13-inch monitors are the norm, as ZDNet points out. Thankfully, Windows 8 at least includes decent multi-monitor support for power desktop users with two monitors.

Full-screen apps — Windows 8 already has some killer apps. Unfortunately, these apps are almost all better suited for tablets than desktops. There’s no “X” in the corner to exit apps in a single click like you can in Windows 7. Instead you have to click the very top of an app and drag it to the bottom of a screen to close it — an easy gesture on a touchscreen, but a laborious exercise with a mouse. It’s also not as easy to switch between these modern apps as it was with old-style desktop apps and the Windows 7 Taskbar.

Modern app switching — To switch between open modern apps using a mouse, you need to hover in the top left corner and then drag down to see the programs on the full left side of the screen. Only modern apps are shown in this lineup of open apps, not desktop apps. So if you want to switch between a modern app and an older desktop app, you need to go into the desktop and then select the desktop app you want. A two-step process has replaced the old one-step switch.

Screen splitting — Another issue with modern apps is the space allocated to them on the screen. When I work, I often divide my screen in two equal-sized windows. Modern apps don’t do this. You can only allocate roughly 25 percent of the screen to one app while the other 75 percent is taken up by another. This layout is not conducive to multitasking. Thankfully, you can still do a 50-50 split, or whatever tiling you’re used to, in the desktop area.

Hidden apps — It can be hard to find programs meant for the old-style Windows desktop if you don’t know where to go. From the desktop screen, you cannot launch desktop apps that aren’t already pinned to the Taskbar. That’s because the Start button is gone. Let’s say you use the Calculator app often. To access it, you have to go to the Start screen, right-click the screen, go to the bottom right-hand corner and select All Apps, then select Calculator. Once Calculator is open on the Desktop, you need to pin it to the Taskbar or you have to go through all of those steps again the next time you want it.

Internet Explorer tabs — This last point is minor, but the modern version of Internet Explorer 10 has no visible tabs. If you want to switch between tabs, you have to right click inside Internet Explorer to reveal your open tabs. I rely heavily on tabs to get my work done, so if you need them like I do, you’ll have to use old-style Internet Explorer from the desktop. While I don’t use Internet Explorer, it’s what comes available out of the box and many folks still use it. Alternately, you can download and use Google Chrome, which includes tabs in its modern app.

Tablet and touchscreen benefits

In its current form, Windows 8 is a tablet-centric OS. The interface works best on tablets, and we can’t wait to see it running on devices like the Microsoft Surface.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 are different beasts, and workflow is different when you have to deal with the Start screen versus the Start button. In Windows 7, I can do everything I can think of from a single screen. I can launch apps from the Taskbar or the Start button, I can easily re-size all my apps in different windows as needed, and everything feels optimized for an external mouse and keyboard.

Windows 8 requires me to switch between the desktop and the Start screen, which feels unnecessary. It shouldn’t take me extra steps if I choose to use a mouse, and that leads me to believe that Microsoft wants us to use tablets or ultrabooks instead of desktops. It also wants us to use full-screen modern apps instead of windowed desktop apps. (One exception: Microsoft Office 2013, which you launch from the Desktop but is more touch-friendly than past versions.)

The problems listed above show Microsoft is willing to alienate desktop users in favor of an interface that embraces touch screens and trackpads. Many businesses still rely on desktops for their workers, and it’s plausible that Windows 7 will remain the top choice for those businesses. That said, companies could adopt Windows 8 for tablets and hybrid laptops they want to deploy to workers.

After spending much time with Windows 8, I can’t recommend it for advanced desktop users unless Microsoft makes interface tweaks to make it more desktop-friendly. I don’t plan to upgrade my desktop from Windows 7 to 8 at launch because Windows 7 works so well. After several years of usage, I consider Windows 7 the best desktop OS ever, and I prefer it to Apple’s also-great Mountain Lion OS.

I expect Windows 7, with its 630 million licenses sold, will remain an incredibly popular OS for the next 10 years — just like Windows XP.

As if the drama surrounding Microsoft’s abandonment of its Metro branding wasn’t silly enough, now it seems Microsoft is taking to task developers who are using ‘Metro’ in their app titles.

A recent revision to Microsoft’s app naming guide for the Windows Store added a key new line: “Make sure your app name doesn’t include the word metro. Apps with a name that includes the word metro will fail certification and won’t be listed in the Windows Store.”

First noticed by the folks at MarkedUp, the new requirement makes it clear that Microsoft wants to distance itself even further from the Metro name, potentially trampling the little goodwill it’s earned so far. Microsoft is believed to have abandoned the Metro branding to avoid a costly trademark dispute with its German partner Metro AG.

We’re hearing that the guidelines to avoid Metro names has been in place since the Windows 8 Release Preview launched in May. Still, that does nothing to answer the more troubling questions these guidelines bring up. We’re still waiting for further details on the matter from Microsoft.

At first glance, it seems like popular apps such as MetroTwit could be in for a world of hurt. And the restriction could cause trouble for other apps that legitimately need to use the word “Metro.” We also expect this requirement to affect Windows Phone apps.

Microsoft still hasn’t fully explained its reasoning for moving away from Metro, and so far, its response to this entire situation has been baffling. Microsoft argued that the Metro name was never really meant for a shipping product, and it still hasn’t given us a legitimate alternative to the Metro branding. We heard last week that it could be either “Windows 8 style” to replace “Metro style,” or “Modern UI.” At this point, we’d just like some clarity already.

Since Microsoft is already confusing developers with its shaky branding, it can’t afford to be so heavy-handed with app requirements so early in the life of the Windows Store.

Update: Microsoft updated the naming guide yesterday to warn not to use trademarked names in app titles. While it’s no longer singling out the use of “Metro,” the fact that “Metro” is also trademarked could be an issue down the line.

Via The Verge

Hey Microsoft, this whole new-name-for-Metro thing? It’s getting a little ridiculous. Just give us the new name already.

Last week, Microsoft ditched the “Metro” interface name for Windows Phone, Windows 8, and other products after nearly two years of use. The company lamely said Metro was just a “code name,” but it’s most likely due to a trademark dispute.

Since then, speculation has run high over what Microsoft will call the user interface. Yesterday, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reported that Microsoft workers are being told the name is now just “Windows 8 user interface.” It’s a terrible name, and it ignores the fact that the “Metro” design is found across other Microsoft products, including Windows Phone, Xbox, Office 2013, and the new Outlook.com.

Today’s rumor, per The Verge, is Microsoft employees have switched to calling the interface the “Modern UI Style.” The “Modern UI Style” name does have some traction because a Thursday blog post from Microsoft even calls it that. “Modern UI” would be better than “Windows 8 UI,” but we’d prefer something more distinctive.

I asked Microsoft if the company would indeed be changing to “Modern UI,” but a spokesperson said the company “had nothing to share.” Surprise surprise.

Why is a design name is causing such a stir? Because Microsoft and CEO Steve Ballmer (pictured) have been touting it for so long. Most of its products are taking on elements of this clean and refreshing look, and it’s a big bet for a normally conservative business. But now that bet has no name.

Microsoft, it’s time to step up.

Steve Ballmer photo: Aanjhan Ranganathan/Flickr

Just when we started getting used to the Metro name for Microsoft’s new design aesthetic, the software giant ended up backing away from the term to avoid a prolonged legal battle with its German partner Metro AG. Now it seems Microsoft may just replace it with a much simpler (and more boring) phrase: Windows 8.

Sources tell ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley that Microsoft workers are now being guided to plug in “Windows 8″ for every previous reference to “Metro.” Now, “Metro-style applications” are referred to as “Windows 8 applications,” and the “Metro user interface” is now called the “Windows 8 user interface.” (The latter will be particularly confusing on Windows Phone, where the Metro design language first appeared two years ago.)

Foley also points to the promo page for Lenovo’s Thinkpad Tablet 2, which references “Windows 8 apps.”

Microsoft isn’t confirming the name change, but the company could barely admit that it was actually using the Metro name in the first place. When we first heard that the Metro name would be going away, Microsoft reps argued that it was just a “code name” and not something meant for commercial release. Of course, all the promotional materials surrounding Metro, including a slick design book handed out at Mobile World Congress, said otherwise.

While calling all of Microsoft’s new design elements “Windows 8″ isn’t exactly sexy, it may be more clear for consumers who are experiencing this interface for the first time. And moving forward, those consumers will likely end up referring to those design elements as “Windows 8″ anyway.

Still, I miss the Metro name. It sounded exciting, energetic, and something entirely unlike Microsoft’s typically stodgy attitude. But maybe I was just grasping for something to love after Microsoft killed the Courier and decided to push Windows 8 on tablets instead.

After the slick mosaics of Metro, we were a bit surprised to see the new packaging for Windows 8.

These designs, which may or may not be final, were leaked to The Verge and don’t seem to have much in common with other designs we’ve seen from Microsoft lately.

They’re a little bit Pucci, a little bit Lisa Frank, and a little bit Windows 7. Again from The Verge, here’s the full leaked image:

And here’s a reference image of (left to right) a Pucci print dress, a Lisa Frank notebook, and a Windows 7 tote bag:

For further reference, here’s the kind of design we’ve come to expect from newer Microsoft products:

The Metro design language was first conceived as part of Microsoft’s plan to revamp its mobile offering. While the codename is being phased out, the aesthetic is being ramped up and rolled out to tons of other Microsoft products, including its web-based email product and desktop operating system.

In fact, the Metro design style is so slick, people have been porting it over to — get ready to gasp and clutch your pearls — that holy grail of design snobbery, the iPhone!

Windows 8 is scheduled to launch officially October 26, 2012. Approximately three people who do not understand how software and the Internet work will be purchasing boxes of Windows 8 from retail stores.*

*Figures are derived from a highly honed and extremely scientific institutional practice we like to call “sarcasm.”

After nearly two years of calling its design language “Metro,” Microsoft has decided to get rid of the name, most likely because of a dispute with the German company Metro AG.

The Verge first reported that Microsoft told developers to stop using the “Metro” name on Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps because of a dispute over the name. But now, Microsoft appears to be getting rid of the name completely. This news comes just a few days after the company’s successful launch of Outlook.com, during which Microsoft touted its clean, Metro-style design.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company is dropping Metro because it’s a “code name,” not a final commercial name. She told us:

We have used Metro style as a code name during the product development cycle across many of our product lines. As we get closer to launch and transition from industry dialog to a broad consumer dialog we will use our commercial names.

This statement rings false. Microsoft first starting hyping up the “Metro” design when it introduced Windows Phone 7 back in October 2010, and it has been using the word to describe Windows 8 for a long while as well. On a Microsoft tutorial page that’s still available (wonder how fast this will be taken down), here’s Microsoft’s official description of Metro per Windows Phone 7:

Metro is the name of the new design language created for the Windows Phone 7 interface. When given the chance for a fresh start, the Windows Phone design team drew from many sources of inspiration to determine the guiding principles for the next generation phone interface. Sources included Swiss influenced print and packaging with its emphasis on simplicity, way-finding graphics found in transportation hubs and other Microsoft software such as Zune, Office Labs, and games with a strong focus on motion and content over chrome.

Not only has the new design language enabled a unique and immersive experience for users of Windows Phone 7; it has also revitalized third-party applications. The standards that have been developed for Metro provide a great baseline, for designers and developers alike. Those standards help them to create successful gesture-driven Windows Phone 7 experiences built for small devices.

Microsoft doesn’t want to admit that it’s giving up the name over a potentially expensive naming dispute, so it’s saying Metro was a “code name” all along. If that makes you feel better, we understand, Microsoft. And so long, Metro!

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The new Windows 8 operating system shows a design sensibility and a clarity of purpose not often seen in a Microsoft product.

I’ve spent about a week with the “consumer preview” of Windows 8, which is available to the public today (you can download the Windows 8 consumer preview for free here). I’ve been testing it on a Samsung tablet, with a separate wireless keyboard and mouse, lent to me by Microsoft. What follows is based on my week-long review.

Here’s what you need to know about the next Windows before you download the consumer preview.

Windows 8 is trying to do everything for everyone

The operating system’s coherence and attractiveness are especially surprising given the enormous number of constituents it has to serve: Windows users in all their maddening variety, computer manufacturers, chip makers, software developers. Even people who live “in the cloud” and couldn’t care less which operating system their device is running still need an OS; they just don’t want it to get in the way.

Of course, all these competing demands are exactly what produced monstrosities like the vast numbers of toolbars in earlier versions of Microsoft Word, or the self-defeating complexity of Windows Vista’s security notifications. Microsoft has a lot of customers, and it’s provably good at capturing and holding on to those customers, but in the process, its products have a tendency to get fugly.

Given those challenges, it’s amazing to see how gracefully Windows 8 pulls off the complicated acrobatic feats expected of it. It doesn’t quite stick the landing, Mary Lou Retton-style, but it delivers a solid performance that suggests even better things to come.

In short, Windows 8 is a promising multi-touch tablet OS, an improved mouse-driven desktop and notebook OS, a cloud client, and a new application development and delivery architecture, all in one.

It’s far from ready for production use, but it is an ambitious step towards a Windows that might not even be called Windows any more.

It’s got a radical new interface

The past few versions of Windows have made interface changes that seem relatively subtle: More animations, more transparency, and so forth. Windows 8 is a striking departure.

Microsoft is doubling down on the “Metro” design language first seen in Windows Phone 7. That means big, bold, multicolored tiles. Many of those tiles update themselves with current information, and not just digits (like the number of unread messages), but actual data (like what your next appointment is, and when it is).

The Start screen display is speedy and pleasingly animated, and I like it.

More significantly, Metro-optimized apps run full-screen. There’s no ability to stack up windows and only very limited tiling options (if you want, you can put one app in a narrow panel on the left and a second app on the remaining 2/3 of the screen).

And there are no toolbars, no menus, no floating palettes. When you’re looking at an app, the whole screen is nothing but content. If you’re browsing the web, you don’t see Internet Explorer: You just see the web page you’re looking at. If you’re reading email, the emails fill the screen. And so on.

If you need to control apps, you swipe in from the top or the bottom of the screen, or right-click on the app, and menus will appear. You can also access “charms,” which are icons to do basic things like adjust settings or share the current page, by swiping in from the right. And you can switch between apps by swiping in from the left, so each app becomes its own full-screen panel.

It’s simple, attractive, and clean-looking. It’s also a little baffling at first. The Microsoft guys who demonstrated the OS to me clearly want people to explore, play, and have fun discovering nifty new gestures as they go. But when you’re trying to find the settings applet that will let you connect to a Wi-Fi network or add an external keyboard, this interface can drive you up the wall.

But what about legacy Windows applications, the kind that you’re probably using right now and have been using for the past decade? Windows 8 supports those too, in “windowing” mode, which looks just like Windows 7. In practice, the “old Windows” view becomes just another app panel, and you can swipe to and from that view just like any other app.

Oh, and there’s no Start button, as we reported a few weeks ago.

You can control it with a touchscreen, mouse, or keyboard

Microsoft has taken pains to make Windows 8 accessible to almost every conceivable input method. The Samsung device I tested it on is a multitouch tablet, and I found the interface fast and responsive to all the gestures I expected: tap, swipe, pinch-to-zoom, and so on.

But Windows 8 is not just a tablet OS; it’s also a PC OS. Accordingly, all those colorful Metro-styled tiles have to work on computers that have mice instead of touchscreens. Microsoft has provided mouse gesture equivalents for every touchscreen gesture, though they’re not always identical: For instance, to bring up those “charms” or system commands, you swipe in from the right edge of the screen, or move the mouse pointer to the lower right-hand corner.

Windows 8 also contains a wealth of keyboard shortcuts, including the classic alt-tab for switching between apps (thank goodness, as that gesture is hardwired into my left hand by now). The company says you should be able to do anything in Windows with any one of these input methods, or a combination of the three.

The system breaks down a bit when you wind up on an old-school Windows screen and you’re using your fingers on the touchscreen. Many buttons and links designed for mouse-only use are way too small to hit accurately with your fingertips, and there’s no way to zoom in. Frustrating.

Add a Kinect, and you can add voice commands and whole-body gestures to the operating system’s vocabulary.

Microsoft has completely overhauled the underlying system

Windows 8 is more than a mere facelift. It’s clear that Microsoft has spent a lot of time rebuilding the underlying architecture of the operating system. I haven’t delved into the particulars of the underlying system, but here are a few indicators of how deep the changes are.

•  Microsoft has introduced a new kind of high-level application programming interface (API) that it calls “contracts,” which aim at simplifying communication between apps for common activities. For instance, there’s a “sharing” contract. Any app that wants to offer something to share (like a web page, a picture, or a document) only needs to code its app to be compatible with the sharing contract. On the other end, apps that can be shared with (like email programs, or a Twitter client) simply need to be compatible with the sharing contract on the receiving end. Neither app needs to know anything about the other app’s APIs, they only have to work with the contract in order to be compatible with any current or future apps that also work with that contract.

• Windows 8 uses your Windows Live ID to authenticate you, and provides many options for syncing data (like your desktop wallpaper or Internet Explorer favorites) so that these options can follow you whenever you log in to any Windows 8 machine. That integration points to a future where your desktop account lives partly in the cloud, partly on a variety of devices — and presupposes a deep level of architectural compatibility with cloud-based data.

• Windows 8 will run on ARM microprocessors — the kind currently found in many tablets and smartphones — as well as the Intel architecture chips that the current Windows uses.

• Apps in the background take up zero processing resources, with very limited exceptions for downloading data or playing music. To make that feasible, every Windows Metro-compatible app has to be ready to shut down completely in 5 seconds or less.

•  Windows 8 boots faster than any desktop OS I’ve used in the past 20 years. It takes about 10 seconds from cold start until the login screen appears. Once you log in, it’s only 2 or 3 seconds until you’re looking at a usable, fully responsive Start screen.

There will be a market for apps

I can’t say much about the actual market or the apps in it, because the Windows Store wasn’t available until today. The only apps on the tablet I tested were the ones pre-installed by Microsoft, and those aren’t necessarily the same ones that will be on the shipping version of Windows 8.

What Microsoft has said is that it will be easy to create Windows 8 apps using current Windows development tools, XAML and C#. But it will also be easy to build apps using HTML5 and JavaScript, the company promises; indeed, several of the demonstration apps, like the maps application, are basically simple wrappers around existing web sites or web applications. One developer even found that he could re-use 90 percent of the code from a Windows Phone game when porting it to Windows 8.

Lots of developers appear to be interested in the possibilities. Microsoft says that 3.5 million people downloaded the Windows 8 developer preview (the version before this one), which came out in September.

Security and management will make Windows 8 attractive to businesses

Built-in security features such as a trusted boot architecture that should prevent a huge number of malware attacks will help reduce Windows’ exposure to viruses and Trojan horse software.

There are other nice touches that will simplify IT management. For instance, remote access is built-in to Windows 8, as it has been in previous versions. No big deal, right? Except that Windows 8 will run on any device, which means you could use your Windows 8 tablet to log in remotely to a Windows 7 machine across the country and diagnose problems without even getting up from the comfy couch in your IT dungeon.

The Windows Live-based login scheme means that it will be even easier to separate user accounts from physical hardware; you can log in to any computer with your ID and all your preferences and apps will follow you. Add Skydrive or another network storage source, and your data will follow you too.

Microsoft also promises that there will be a version called Windows 8 to Go, which will put the entire operating system on a bootable USB stick. Plug it into any compatible machine (even a Windows 7 machine), boot from the thumb drive, and you’ve got your entire computing environment right there. When you log off and remove the drive, it leaves none of your data behind.

It’s not quite there yet

This is a “consumer preview” release, which would have been called a beta in previous days. It’s free to download, because Microsoft is using you as a guinea pig, and they hope you’ll give them feedback. But basically, you’re getting what you pay for.

The Metro interface is confusing unless you’ve been shown some key gestures, like how to swipe in from the edges of the screen and which corners to send the mouse pointer to. My guess is that Microsoft will need to add some kind of hinting, or maybe pop-up videos or interactive help dialogs: “We notice you’ve spent the past five minutes jabbing aimlessly at the screen. Can we help you find something?”

There are missing pieces: For instance, Flash support is incomplete, and that means you can’t play every video on YouTube, for instance.

Not all the apps, even some by Microsoft, got the memo about leaving the controls off the screen. For instance, the maps app has a persistent toolbar at the bottom and a search bar at the top. Neither one ever disappears. If the Bing Maps team can get away with this, you can bet other developers will be pushing the limits too, and then it’ll be toolbars all the way down again.

Some of the gestures aren’t consistently implemented: For instance, you can swipe in from the left of the screen to see every running app plus an icon that will take you back to the Start screen — unless you only have one running app, in which case nothing happens.

It’s way too hard to find your way to the system settings. There needs to be a Metro-styled settings app, complete with a prominent tile, right on the Start screen.

Also, it’s a bit buggy. Sometimes the system just stops responding. Weird things happen sometimes with beta software.

You can pretend all the new stuff doesn’t exist

Switching between Metro and classic Windows is still awkward, and probably always will be, to a certain extent. It’s kind of how running DOS applications in a window used to be: Microsoft wants to provide support for legacy applications, but they coexist uneasily with the new paradigm. This difference is especially pronounced this time around, because Windows applications are legion.

But suppose you just really hate all those colorful, animated tiles, and want nothing to do with Metro at all? Apart from the Start screen, you can probably avoid Metro entirely — for now. Just open up a desktop window and carry on using Windows the same way you did before, with all your old apps. Of course, the Start button is gone, but that’s no big deal, just push your mouse pointer into the lower left corner where it used to be.

My prediction is that people will spend most of their time in the Windows environment, not Metro, until a few years have gone by. However, Metro will become more ubiquitous slowly, as Windows spreads to tablets, if Microsoft is able to increase its market share among smartphones, and if app developers jump on the Windows Store bandwagon.

Eventually, Windows users will be living in a majority-Metro world, with more tiles than windows.

And who knows? Maybe, eventually, Microsoft will drop the name “Windows” altogether.

While we would not advocate trying this yourself, there are many reports that it works, and helps stop Chuck Norris appearing on your dashboard when you least expect it.

There are two methods of removing the advertising, as detailed on Reddit, and both involve blocking the server that Microsoft is using to deliver advertising – rad.msn.com

The first method is to block the rad.msn.com domain via your router, if this feature is supported. After doing so, try to access the domain via a computer. If you receive a 404 or “security” error it means the address has been blocked. Receiving a 403 error means the address has not been blocked.

The second method involves using the free OpenDNS service, which can filter your connection and block specific sites. Instructions for doing this are below.

1. Sign up for a free OpenDNS account.
2. Add a network for your current IP address.
3. Go to Advanced Settings and next to ‘Domain Typos’, check the box ‘Enable typo correction’, if it’s not already checked, and apply.
4. Go to Web Content Filtering settings and set the filtering level to ‘None’, and under ‘Manage individual domains’, put rad.msn.com and select ‘Always block’ and then click ‘Add domain’.
5. On your Xbox, go to System Settings -> Network Settings -> (your connection) -> Configure Network -> DNS settings -> Manual, and enter the OpenDNS IP addresses for the primary and secondary DNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
6. You may need to clear your hard drive cache before ads disappear entirely: System Settings -> Storage -> Hard Drive -> press Y -> Clear System Cache (note that you may have to re-download any title updates for any games you play after doing this)

Microsoft is keen for the Xbox to become a ‘true entertainment platform’, and its new dashboard, with its goal of targeted advertising, is a firm part of that plan. It is unlikely that the company will be happy for users to circumvent its advertising delivery system for long, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this workaround being nullified in the near future. Saying that, those gamers are a resourceful bunch.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Indie Games are no longer listed in the New Arrivals section of the Marketplace, nor the Genre listings. Instead, they are found through a tile labelled Game Type.

The Xbox Metro dashboard update went live on Dec. 6 and brought with it a host of new features. In the shake up though, the XBox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) channel has been replaced with an Indie Games tile, which some developers are worried might be missed by gamers, or could eventually disappear altogether. In addition, the Bing search engine on the dashboard is failing to return results for many Xbox Live Indie games. Searching for ‘Dead Rising’ yields a multitude of results, but searching for ‘Applejack’ or ‘Avatar Battle Bees’ returns no relevant findings.

Mommy’s Best Games boss Nathan Fouts spoke to Eurogamer explaining his concerns, “There’s a revolving tile that currently also links you to Indie Games but it’s sort of random if someone will see that or even if IG will be listed there next week.” He added that “the truly disheartening news is that the ‘games’ tab on our game console is now several pages away from the start……simply getting to the main portal for Arcade, Games on Demand or Indie Games, or for that matter my own game library is a chore.”

The dashboard has also brought with it more advertising, as Microsoft looks to target adverts to individuals, based on their behaviors. The new layout is an “advertisers dream”, according to Fouts, but this means that “every single page main page now has an advertisement on it, there are dozens of secret little places to feature things, and it’s easy to get lost.”

Cthulhu Saves the World developer Robert Boyd, is also concerned about the new dashboard, and thinks that it will probably result in reduced sales: “It feels to me that Microsoft is trying to promote individual games more but hide the [XBLIG] channel as a whole. I think this will result in less sales overall, but only time will tell.”

Although a degree of backlash is to be expected with such a major dashboard change, the concerns raised by indie developers do feel like part of a wider feeling of discontent towards Microsoft. Brett Everleigh, developer of Avatar Battle Bees, says that “Microsoft take a back-seat approach and only really gets involved to take a cut of your sales and make the games slightly harder to find with each new dashboard update”. He adds that “it feels like Microsoft has abandoned the platform in favour of Windows Phone 7. But instead of admitting it they’re brushing it under the carpet and hoping it’ll go away.”

Pricing is also a point of concern for many XBLIG developers, as they are forced to under-value their games, to get people to even consider them, according to Everleigh. He points out that while Indie games on PC and iOS are also being devalued, there are a sufficient number of users on those platforms to offset the problem, which isn’t the case on XBLIG.

Microsoft has responded to these concerns in a statement, saying “Indie developers have told us they are looking for an easy route to market, which is the biggest hurdle to overcome, and we’ve provided that for them with Xbox Live Indie Games. But they’ve got to take that next step and do marketing after the launch.”

The statement continues, “”the new Xbox 360 Dashboard update provides improved ways for consumers to find great indie titles, including the ability to search with voice”, but while this voice search is a nice new feature, it doesn’t overcome the fact that some indie titles aren’t showing up in the results.

Microsoft states that it is listening to feedback from developers, and is taking it into account for future programs.

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Microsoft is apparently using some recent design innovations from Windows Phone 7 and Office in early test versions of Windows 8, including aspects of its mobile Metro user interface and Office’s Ribbon.

The news comes from a series of leaked screenshots that have hit the Web over the past few days from the Windows news power duo Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera.

The early design changes tell us that Microsoft will likely be looking for further inspiration for Windows 8 from its mobile and office software — and perhaps elsewhere. Windows 7, for the most part, looks like a more polished version of the much reviled Vista. Now it seems Microsoft may be aiming for a fresh start in Windows 8.

On Friday, Thurrott and Rivera showed off an early version of Windows 8′s login screen (above), which looks like it was lifted directly from Windows Phone 7′s lock screen. It features the same font and overall style as its mobile counterpart. The pair also hinted at potential tablet functionality in the lock screen: you’ll be able to login using a pattern, just like on Android phones at the moment.

The Windows 8 login screen admittedly may not mean much for the rest of the OS, but it signifies that we may see other elements of Windows Phone’s user interface elsewhere. It also buoys rumors that Microsoft would include some of its mobile interface for tablets on Windows 8.

On Saturday, Thurrott and Rivera revealed that Microsoft is currently testing Office’s Ribbon menu system in Windows Explorer (below). Just like in Office, the Ribbon appears to fully replace any previous menus and toolbars in Explorer. It’s not a huge surprise to see Microsoft trying to bring the Ribbon to Windows proper — it has already made its way to Wordpad and Microsoft’s Live Essentials programs.

To be clear: Microsoft is currently testing Windows 8 in a pre-alpha testing state, meaning the OS is at an incredibly early stage of development. What we’re seeing today in Windows 8 may not make its way to the final version of the OS — but it’s certainly interesting to see what Microsoft is thinking of including.

With the deal, the news chain will add content so people who follow Metro on Foursquare can receive alerts when they’re physically close to a place that’s been covered. If you’re close to a restaurant that Metro has reviewed, you’ll get a “tip” through your phone with a link to the full story.

It’s an interesting move, as it comes a little more than a week after user-generated reviews giant Yelp basically copied the “check-in” function that helped make Foursquare popular. The New York startup pioneered the check-in, a lightweight and temporary way of sharing your location with friends by typing in where you are (e.g. at a restaurant or bar). Other competing mobile social networks like Google Latitude had used persistent location-sharing, which doesn’t work well on the iPhone because Apple doesn’t allow apps to run in the background. It’s also a bit too far ahead on the privacy curve.

The check-in is now a commodity, as others like Yelp, Rummble and Loopt have adopted it. So Foursquare rolled out an application programming interface to stay ahead by pushing developers to create all sorts of interesting apps around its data.

Getting editorial content through Metro also patches another relative weakness. Foursquare doesn’t have the kind of in-depth reviews and criticism Yelp has accumulated over several years. Plus, the design of its current tips section encourages users to leave bite-sized comments, which may not be as helpful as a full review for discovering interesting places and things to do.