Windows 8 Being Full Metro Will Be Your Choice

Windows 8 will bring with a brand new UI concept called Metro. This concept was first shown in the video above, demonstrating the new, slick interface that's inspired by Microsoft's work on Windows Phone 7 and touch-based hardware. It's a radical addition that will prepare Windows 8 for a whole new generation of PCs and very non-PCs.

Microsoft's Windows President Steven Sinofsky took the opportunity to talk about the new Metro UI some more on the Building Windows 8 blog.

"By now you've seen two different elements of the Windows 8 design—first, a Metro style user interface we showed previously and in a video seen by millions of folks. And recently, we have described in this blog some of the enhancements we’re making to familiar Windows desktop tools such as Explorer and the copy file dialog," wrote Sinofsky.

In what should quell complaints of what Microsoft's shown for Windows 8, Sinofsky confirms that users will have the ultimate choice of interface.

We believe there is room for a more elegant, perhaps a more nuanced, approach. You get a beautiful, fast and fluid, Metro style interface and a huge variety of new apps to use. These applications have new attributes (a platform) that go well beyond the graphical styling (much to come on this at Build). As we showed, you get an amazing touch experience, and also one that works with mouse, trackpad, and keyboard. And if you want to stay permanently immersed in that Metro world, you will never see the desktop—we won’t even load it (literally the code will not be loaded) unless you explicitly choose to go there! This is Windows reimagined.But if you do see value in the desktop experience—in precise control, in powerful windowing and file management, in compatibility with hundreds of thousands of existing programs and devices, in support of your business software, those capabilities are right at your fingertips as well. You don’t need to change to a different device if you want to edit photos or movies professionally, create documents for your job or school, manage a large corpus of media or data, or get done the infinite number of things people do with a PC today. And if you don’t want to do any of those “PC” things, then you don’t have to and you’re not paying for them in memory, battery life, or hardware requirements. If you do want or need this functionality, then you can switch to it with ease and fluidity because Windows is right there. Essentially, you can think of the Windows desktop as just another app. Windows 8 brings together all the power and flexibility you have in your PC today with the ability to immerse yourself in a Metro style experience. You don’t have to compromise! You carry one device that does everything you want and need. You can connect that device to peripherals you want to use. You can use devices designed to dock to large screen displays and other peripherals. You can use convertible devices that can be both immersive tablets and flexible laptops.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • aznshinobi
    Elegant, yes. PC no, maybe for tablets or phones. But not for PC, I feel it'd be more frustrating to work with those dang tiles. I already have widgets on my desktop.
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    Windows 8 Being Full Metro Will Be Your Choice

    thanks for pointing that out captain obvious
    Reply
  • overthinkingidiot
    Dear tomshardware: STOP SHOWING THE SAME VIDEO EVERY TIME.
    Reply
  • alterecho
    Whats with all the retail OS makers lately? First Lion and now Windows 8.
    They've let the smartphone successes get to their heads.

    Smartphones should be smartphones and computers should be computers.
    Reply
  • ikyung
    aznshinobiElegant, yes. PC no, maybe for tablets or phones. But not for PC, I feel it'd be more frustrating to work with those dang tiles. I already have widgets on my desktop.That is what I thought when I first saw the preview for Win8, but I don't see why it wouldn't work as long as it is compatible and efficient. Seems as thought Microsoft and Apple is trying to uniform their products now which makes perfect sense to me. I can get use to it as long as it is efficient as W7 or XP.
    Reply
  • Cryio
    When did PC + Apps mean "Love" for developers? I think it should be called clusterfack
    Reply
  • dread_cthulhu
    alterechoWhats with all the retail OS makers lately? First Lion and now Windows 8.They've let the smartphone successes get to their heads.Smartphones should be smartphones and computers should be computers.
    The lines get blurrier everyday... I doubt I'll invest in Windows 8, unless it outperforms 7...
    Reply
  • jacobdrj
    If it survives, this will be a great addition for my (currently) 3-year-old HP TX2500Z.
    Reply
  • godfather666
    I'll always be a desktop guy, and have no use for smartphone-style interfaces, but other people prefer it... so why not give them the choice?

    Choice is good, as long as it doesn't hurt the functionality in traditional Windows.
    Reply
  • malphas
    captaincharismathanks for pointing that out captain obviousExactly, I think it's been clear from the outset that the Metro UI was brought about in response to the increasingly wide range of form factors Windows would be targeting, and intended for use primarily on tablets. Of course, that didn't stop the lolcows from whining about how awful it is, and how they'll stick with Windows 7/XP forever.
    Reply