Comment by evanjrowley

Glad to see someone was inspired to do this! I believe the Windows 8 UI was good - one of my unpopular opinions explained below.

I never personally owned a Windows 8 computer, but I used some at work. I logged in to Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 on a daily bases for several years - these had the same type of start menu.

Prior to this experience on Windows, I was a Mac OS X "power user" enjoying Quicksilver[0][1] on Snow Leopard (10.6) through (Mavericks 10.9). It's mode of interaction[2] was very similar to Spotlight[3] built-in to modern macOS.

I also learned to touch type on that very same *MacBook while waiting for a plane in an airport terminal.

All this is to say that the concept of hitting a key and typing to launch an application felt very natural to me when I first encountered the Windows 8 UI. I never felt the need to use a traditional start menu, despite having clocked lots of hours on Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, and older versions. in the office. When Windows 10 brought back the traditional start menu, I only ever searched through it like I would have on a Windows 8 or MacOS system.

Recent benchmark testing[4] showed Windows 8.1 to be faster in many ways compared to Windows 10 and Windows 11. I was surprised someone actually did this, but not surprised at the results!

Perhaps one of the reasons why I preferred it more than Windows 10 and Winows 11 is the Control Panel was still very usable in Windows 8. As someone who worked on Server versions of Windows, the Control Panel was very much embedded in my muscle memory. The erosion of it in subsequent versions of Windows is the source of my growing pains. That, plus all of the popular reasons why Microsoft/Windows gets backlash today.

* The 2010 MacBook was advertized with a 10 hour battery life. Many years would pass before Apple would again advertize such a long battery lifetime. I had upgraded the RAM and swapped the optical drive for a second 2.5 hard disk, then re-installed Mac OS X in software RAID1 mode. It was extremely stable for many years until the day I decided to decomission it (ran 'sudo rm -rf /' at the Terminal). I.e., the type of stuff that would give Tim Cook indegestion.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_(software)

[1] https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver

[2] https://images.sftcdn.net/images/t_app-cover-s,f_auto/p/7e76...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_(Apple)

[4] https://meterpreter.org/the-20-year-showdown-why-windows-8-1...