[inthewind]

Funny that, I bought a copy a copy of Windows 8 because I'd read that multi-monitor support was better. But it still didn't work for me. Mainly because I don't necessarily want both my displays on at the same time. And I want to switch my primary monitor as and when I feel like it. I don't want windows appearing on off monitors. And if they do I want to be able to grab and group them.

Then there's window management. Which I think is pretty woeful on both Windows and OSX. I want to be able to send a window to another display easily. Switch focus etc Without having to fumble about with the mouse like an idiot. Not wonder why I can't do anything because some modal window is hidden somewhere on another monitor.

I've given up on multi-monitors, they are just not worth it for me until these issues are addressed. Multi-desktops will have to suffice instead.

In short: I want plug and play monitor support and good window management baked into OSs.

[ComputerGuru]

On Windows 7: winkey+left/right arrow will dock actively focused window from one side of the screen to the center to the other side of the screen and then to the next monitor and so on and so forth. I hate Windows 8 so can't comment there. The inanity of the "let's kill multitasking by showing only one (metro) app window on the screen at once kinda cancels out any other windows management improvements that PoS might ship with.

But back to the subject at hand: winkey+arrow is awesome. Works so you can retrieve a window from a display that isn't on (though how hard can it be for ms to detect that and not launch your app on a powered down screen??) without needing to see what you're doing (in the past, I've had to blindly click and drag hoping I got the title bar. Or right-click on the app in the task and choose move.

The newest OS X builds have much saner multidisppay support than that.

[dangrossman]

The keyboard shortcuts are the same (with some new ones) in Win8. Moving windows between screens is just as easy.

I don't understand the Windows 8 hate; it seems so very irrational from someone tech-literate. It's Windows 7 with a more power-efficient and fast-booting kernel, improved Explorer and disk IO system, better task manager and a bunch of other really useful improvements. It's incredibly stable and resource-efficient, and will likely make any system you install it on last longer with the same battery -- far from a "PoS".

It also comes with an app store. You can ignore the store if you'd like, it's just another program you never have to run. How does the presence of this kill the whole OS for you? Did you once feel the same about the inclusion of Spider Solitaire in Windows ME?

You can alt-tab between metro apps and native programs, you can run them in the background, and drag them between displays too. You can leave the Netflix app up on one screen and your 20 non-Metro windows on the other at the same time. Or you could snap it to 1/3rd or 1/2 of the screen, and use the rest for your other windows. Multitasking isn't defeated in any way.

[inthewind]

In Windows 8 there are two different keyboard shortcuts to move windows between displays depending on whether you are in desktop or metro mode. That's a bit of a downer. It still doesn't address the use case where I have a monitor turned off. Blindly trying to grab windows in the dark isn't clever.

I have a desktop PC connected to my TV in one room, with a HDMI cable, and a monitor in the other. I'd like to just play games and use media centre on either monitor. But I can't do this easily. The current fudge of a solution is to yank the cables out of the back of the PC or swap them over. Which is a pain, as I want the machine hidden away. I'd like to easily control where the audio ends up aswell, but that's another topic. Actually ideally, I'd like my partner to be able to use media-centre, while I'm using the other monitor in the room next door. I don't think that's a wild idea.

A lot of good ideas have been kicking about in various window managers and add ons for a decade. So why not steal and implement these ideas with a little polish?

I have similar issues under Linux, but if I could be bothered I could probably at least script it.

If somethnig like a Ubuntu Edge, gets traction, than it will be really important to get this kind of thing working correctly.

I like the way OSX detects monitors, and I like the way you can easily arrange the displays, but there's still an assumption that you'll be keeping them all on.

It's painful to watch people use multi-monitor setups, which is a shame because using them could be far more intuitive and productive. I'm intrigued to read more about the changes in Mavericks.

[ComputerGuru]

I actually love the technical improvements in Windows 8, enough that I'm considering buying a license for Server 2008 to run as my desktop.

Server 2008 has the features you speak of "and has metro too." Whereas Windows 8 shoves Metro down your throat. I have tried to use it, I keep changing the settings one at a time so that when I launch a file or try to load a program I'm not jerked away from my traditional workspace screen.

I'm not one of the guys that's lamenting the death of the start menu — I use OS X on a daily basis and get along just fine with cmd+space and searching for my apps by name. I don't like how ADHD the Metro UI is, I don't like how Microsoft seems to have not even remotely considered the cognitive cost of screen-switching. It's completely unnatural to jerk me back and forth between two completely different window managers. It's stupid of them to launch Metro apps by default when there's two apps of the same name, one Metro and one not.

Microsoft castrated shadow copy, pressing 'delete' instantly removes files without asking to confirm deletion (yes, Mac does this to, but on Mac it's a keypress combo of cmd+backspace which is unlikely to happen by accident), and worst of all, now that all UX access is search-based, the fact that Windows' search feature is completely, horribly useless really shines. I can never find documents by name or content with search on Windows, funny how that works just fine on Mac. With Windows 7, I had it set up so I could work around the inept search ranking algorithm, with Windows 8 I cannot.

[johnbellone]

> I don't understand the Windows 8 hate;

You're not meant to understand it. Its the party line. Many of the people that loathe Windows 8 likely have had Windows XP shoved down their throats for the last decade at work. So anything with a Microsoft logo on it makes them sick.