[cooldeal]

I know the moving control panel, network properties etc. led to a lot of annoyances, but in terms of the actual window handling, taskbar, start menu, how was it terrible?

The search box on the start menu was itself a huge leap over XP. That was the single big thing I missed in XP.

[wvenable]

Far enough, anything unchanged from XP isn't terrible. And the start menu search box is a big improvement even if the rest of the start menu seems worse.