How To Remove Garden Window

Removing Windows 8 is better than…

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I tried, folks, really I did. After unleashing my rant last week about the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I decided I would brave it for as long as I was mentally and physically capable. After all, this is a new operating system from Microsoft — I have as much a responsibility to myself as I do to the tech community to know it, use it, and understand it.

So I endured the Technicolor-eyesore Metro Start Screen, with all those oversize buttons that take seconds to launch programs that always started instantaneously in Windows 7. I pushed aside the psychological torture of opening program after program and never closing one, despite knowing I would never come back to it. I gritted my teeth through countless single-window screens, constant system slowdowns, and navigational awkwardness, always hoping that sticking with the pain would somehow make me a better person.

But after several additional days of seeing upgrades from Windows 7 fail on three separate computers, after several additional days of seeing even touchscreen all-in-ones and tablets actually become less usable as a result of being Windows 8ified, and after several additional days of being treated like a preschooler suffering from ADHD for wanting to perform the simplest tasks, I reached my snapping point.

Start8 As I said last time, I'm an adult and I want my computer to treat me like one. I have neither the time nor the inclination to trudge through multiple circles of interface hell just to do basic things that then fail to work as they always have before. And though I'm more than willing to pursue the workarounds people are discovering for bypassing Metro, I fail to see why I — or anyone — should have to. Microsoft, if you want to take over the tablet market, terrific. But can't you find a way to do so that respects the hundreds of millions of customers who helped put you where you are?

Right here and now I'll make this pledge: As new major editions of Windows 8 are released along the road to the final RTM version, I will keep trying them. I'm going to give Microsoft every opportunity to turn around this fiasco, to convince me that this is the operating system I both need and want to use. And if (when?) my mind changes about, I will let you all know. Microsoft has released a lot of good products over the last few decades, many of which have had significant positive impacts on my life, so the company has at least earned that.

For the time being, however, I have too much self-respect and too many demands on my time to devote to what is currently, at its best, nonsense. So a repartition, a format, and 20 minutes or so of disc accessing later, I had wiped out Windows 8 and replaced it with a sparkling copy of Windows 7. Let me tell you, that whole process was far and away the most invigorating and intensely satisfying experience I had all week.

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