So windows 8 went RTM a few weeks ago and I installed it soon after that. I installed it on a normal laptop. And to be honest the normal win8 user experience on a mouse and keyboard laptop is abismal. It’s close to keyboard only. The start screen takes you away from your desktop work area the charms bar opens in a weird place that I can’t customize nor dock. So for me all those features of win8 are not what I need nor want. And since this is my laptop I can and will customize it no matter what other people think or say. And that meant installing start8 from stardock. Start8 is in beta and now on version 0.9 and still free. They just want your emailaddress to send you some newsletters to which you can unsubscribe.

So why install start8.

You get the startbutton back. And you can make it look like the win7 menu.

but I can also make it look like the win8 startscreen.

and then there is the start to desktop feature which starts windows 8 directly to the desktop and avoids you seeing the startmenu.

I can now easily find the controlpanel again.

I can now easily shutdown or restart the laptop again.

And to me an operating system that I can adapt to my way of working is a better operating system. After all they are selling their product to me, their customer and not themselfs.

So why did I install win8 anyway.

• It’s supposed to be more secure and it has a virusscanner built in.
• It has a much better taskmanager.
• It’s a little quicker.
• It has a better explorer.
• A lot less intrusive update experience, apparently
• It’s shiny and new
• And most importantly, it’s shiny and new

So in conclusion. I like win8 a lot better now.

– This version of Start8 is only intended as a Beta and will stop working on October 1, 2012.