Looks like your left pinky finger got stuck there, Dennis, gotta watch that. :)
Listen up, please, as I'm only gonna go through this rant for you one more time. It's tiresome to me too.
* Yes, there exists third party software to do almost anything on a Windows PC.
* Yes, you are more ambitious and possibly smarter than the average Windows PC user, you can find and install software to change your PC from the defaults.
* The fact is, the vast majority of Windows users DO NOT change from the default, they suffer with it. That's the problem here: the default sucks.
* Win 8 is a fine OS under the hood, but desktop users don't interact with system software calls, they interact with the Metro GUI. And for the vast majority of Windows desktop users, the Metro GUI is worse than worthless. For them, it gives no value and it sucks their time and patience. It has cost businesses as well as home users countless tens of thousands of lost hours of productivity while users try to battle their way back to something they can use productively like they have for the past decade and a half. That's real money lost for no good reason and no net benefit.
* Microsoft screwed the pooch with the Metro GUI for desktop use because they removed the old GUI. If they had only left it in place as an option, Windows 8 would have done really well. Seriously. But they made it impossible to use Windows 8 out of the box, for the vast majority of Windows desktop users.
Now please, please, read closely, here it comes again:
* While it is true (as you say) that a user can hunt around and find a third party package to correct one part of the egregious mistake Microsoft made with Metro on the desktop, users should not have to correct egregious mistakes by layering in third-party software that only addresses a fraction of the problem. "Restoring the Start Button" is only the first small step, and does nothing to reverse the cost damage done by Metro to the businesses and homes of America.
And the fact that Microsoft has backtracked on the GUI and admitted they were wrong is another indication that your claim, while true, is meaningless for the vast majority of Windows 8 users.
Now you've made me say it again, and it's the last time. Let's please just agree to disagree and leave this alone.
I will not bother you anymore about this. Your logic is very sensible. The higher ups at Microsoft could have had a start button update that was like Start8 to correct all this. But they refused. Pretty self destructive and company destructive. The Cupertino crowd (gay Apple bon vivants) prolly had lots of good laughs over these MS blockheads refusing to do a simple start button correction on Win 8 for the “legacy” crowd