well last night before I had to wake my wife up to send her off to Germany (school trip), I bought Win8, downloaded it and then used the option to make a bootable usb stick before upgrading my laptop. All went swimmingly and before I knew it it was 5 am. It has its quirks but I like it, so far.

Married her young then? Sorry I couldn't resist.

some people take a few moments when I say she's off to school before they realise that she is a teacher

I've found it ok so far as well. I tend to view Metro as being an enormous Start menu in most uses, but it's quick and so far very stable.

That is what i view it as. A big active start screen that I can glance at to see if there are any emails or things of interest on the live tiles before I click on the desktop.

I find it absolutely [LIFTED] horrible, including the user interface. The Metro apps. also draw my ire, who wants to use "photo" on a desktop PC instead of Windows Photo Viewer?

Great so far, I did a clean install (preserve personal data only).

Re-installing the apps I need.

I also see the IFKAM as a full-screen start menu, with information. So far, I like it. Reminds me a lot of my WP7 phone, which is a nice interface.

The BBC techy show 'Click' did a windows 8 piece this weekend and that's exactly how the presenter explained the the IFKAM. It seems a pretty reasonable point in general, but I think there were things you could get on the start menu that you can't get on the windows 8 'front screen'. Most of them weren't things most people ever used though.

This is quite a funny read...

http://www.marco.org/2012/10/26/an-alternate-universe

To be honest, I wish he'd separated that into two pieces, one on the Microsoft Store's buying (or indeed not buying) experience and one on the actual tablet itself. I find myself knowing little about Surface after that piece. I now know MS has 'copycat' stores - but only in the US I think - and that PC shop salesman can be pushy, but I knew that already.

It's a well-written piece but I find myself dissatisfied with it.

I guess the only way I'm going to know if windows 8 will work for me is to get hold of a copy and install it on a VM, although I remember seeing a support note that Windows 8 doesn't really work in Parallels yet. Have to see if it's good to go in VMware instead...

Not a good start...

I'm predicting that Windows 7 will be the new XP. ie The OS that refuses to die.

With a username like that I'm mightily surprised at you not liking a Microsoft product.

Another interesting read.

http://www.backupbrain.com/2012/10/the- ... the-front/

Hits on the point that ... Windows 8 seems to be an OS designed for people who want to do nothing else other than use an OS.

I've used win8 at work. Some of the guys have installed it. Personally I use a mac. Having used it I can honestly say I will not be buying a windows pc to use it. Utterly atrocious experience from the word go.

Some of the "gestures" they have used are completely unintuitive.

Like the other article says. No more thought went into the design than "apple used animations so we will too" and "apple used gestures so we will too". They completely missed the point that the animations and gestures have to be subtle and intuitive to work well.

+1 to Lev and Foggy's comments after what I saw on Click today