[greatdox]

That is why people want to stick with XP/7 instead of 8.X because they don't like the Modern GUI (It was called Metro until Microsoft was sued over the name) and feel like it is a giant step backward to the 1992 MS-DOS days of AOL for DOS or the old Prodigy of everything in small Windows that you cannot even re-size or have any 'visual clues' how they work like the Desktop and Start Menu of the Classic Windows has.

For example 'visual clues' in the Classic Windows have minimize and maximize buttons and the "X" button means close. These Modern GUI Windows, where are the 'visual clues'? It breaks the way Windows is supposed to work.

You have to drag the mouse to the bottom or top right side of the screen to access the 'Charms Bar' to do stuff in it, and Windows-C as a shortcut. I tried the touchscreen and it is a nightmare trying to make the correct type of swipe. Sometimes it does things you don't want it to do.

Plus a lot of desktop apps cannot be converted to Modern GUI mode because it lacks the gadgets the desktop has to make things easier to use. The Visual Studio IDE for example has so many tool icons and toolbars that not all of it will fit in a Modern GUI screen. It would need a major rewrite of the GUI, and force all developers to relearn all of their Visual Studio skills.

Remember when Office 2007 made that Ribbon bar? It was worse than Clippy the Office Assistant type of annoying.

Many compared Modern GUI to New Coke, the Classic Version was always better. If not for Desktop mode I could not use my Windows 8.1 Pro device.

[mzf]

Modern UI isn't ready - that's why so many people hate it. How do you make desktop better? It is already perfect. But development must go on - there is a need to make something new that people would buy.

So, you start a new thing and add continuously "new features" that are simple and elementary as hell. Years of safe development of elementary features that may simply be included in the first version of software - but they aren't. In Windows 8.1 you don't need to stick with static background colors. Wow, what an update and development achievement. Couldn't foresee that user would like that.

I think that Modern UI becomes more and more user-friendly but it takes time because you simply cannot make final product with first version because then the next versions wouldn't shine.

[Amezarak]

Modern UI applications do have a minimize and close button now. They also show up in the taskbar.

[kremlin]

I find the ribbon to be very usable

[jaredmcateer]

I found it usable for 90% of the use cases but that last 10% is incredibly frustrating. It's been a long time since I've used Office so I can't conjure up an example but I remember trying to do something with tables that was fairly straight forward in Office 2003 it was nearly impossible in 2007.