{"slug": "windows-8", "name": "Windows 8", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 2, "score": 1.897, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-19", "latest": "2026-10-05", "why": "I miss the Windows 8 UI - one of my unpopular opinions", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I miss the Windows 8 UI - one of my unpopular opinions", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Windows 8"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 799426688, "item_id": 49964168, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49964168", "by": "PaulHoule", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I thought Microsoft had a good idea with Windows 8", "excerpt": "They must have a prototype of an iPad somewhere that can run both iOS and Mac software but they are too comfortable with their current product positioning. I thought Microsoft had a good idea with Windows 8, I mean, I don\u2019t travel with a laptop anymore, just an iPad and wireless mouse and keyboard. If I need to use desktop software I use RDP or something like that. I go to a hackathon and I have both the sleekest and", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple and a hacker's future"}, {"id": 745429936, "item_id": 46589371, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46589371", "by": "evanjrowley", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I miss the Windows 8 UI - one of my unpopular opinions", "excerpt": "Glad to see someone was inspired to do this! I miss the Windows 8 UI - one of my unpopular opinions, which I shall justify here. 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", "context": "daily Windows Server 2012 user", "use_case": "desktop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 8 Desktop Environment for Linux"}, {"id": 736745712, "item_id": 46046607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046607", "by": "patapong", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app. This made it feel quite fast.", "excerpt": "One underappreciated thing about Windows 8 is that even if the start menu was ugly and blocked the entire screen, you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app. This made it feel quite fast. Now on more recent windows editions, I find that I often need to wait for the menu to visually appear before it will accept any keyboard input, and ", "context": "", "use_case": "start menu app launching", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows GUI \u2013 Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)"}, {"id": 735703856, "item_id": 45981491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981491", "by": "ksymph", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've always had a soft spot for Metro design, aka Windows 8 UI.", "excerpt": "I've always had a soft spot for Metro design, aka Windows 8 UI. Win8 as a whole was a mess of course -- but looking beyond the glaring flaws, I think the new direction captured some of that Win95-esque spartan functionality while also having its own sense of personality. The modern minimalist UI hellscape is miserable, but overly skeumorphic designs like Win7 Aero (or Apple Liquid Glass) are obnoxious and cluttered t", "context": "", "use_case": "UI design", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What operating systems, apps, etc. had your favorite UI designs?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782460753, "item_id": 48903797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903797", "by": "calgoo", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "skipped the crapshow that was windows 8", "excerpt": "I loved the tiled Windows phone ui, felt years ahead of the already aging android look and the god awful iOS look. I use android and iOS daily, and luckily I have been able to add a tiled launcher, with live tiles in android. Also, had ms continued production and not burned goodwill at each turn, as well as skipped the crapshow that was windows 8, we could at least had had 3 providers instead of two.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nokia's 14 Years of Mobile-Phone Supremacy Ended in an Afternoon"}, {"id": 760031555, "item_id": 47501972, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47501972", "by": "oldandboring", "date": "2026-03-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Windows 8 was Vista all over again. Everyone hated it.", "excerpt": "Today's reminder of how old I'm getting: this is totally predictable. Microsoft has been doing this for 30 years. Disclaimer: I'm aware of these things and have used most of them, but really none as a daily driver since Windows 2000. So I'm probably leaving some stuff out. Windows 95 and 98 were great releases. Windows ME was so bad they scrapped the Win9x codebase entirely. Windows 2000 was game-changing. One of the", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft's \"Fix\" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating"}]}], "who": [{"by": "ahartmetz", "context": "Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591969", "date": "2026-06-18"}, {"by": "evanjrowley", "context": "daily Windows Server 2012 user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46589371", "date": "2026-01-12"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["desktop os", "start menu app launching", "ui design"], "compared": [{"slug": "windows-7", "name": "Windows 7", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "windows-11", "name": "Windows 11", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "windows-10", "name": "Windows 10", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49962857", "title": "Apple and a hacker's future", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48892709", "title": "Nokia's 14 Years of Mobile-Phone Supremacy Ended in an Afternoon", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586231", "title": "What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47500335", "title": "Microsoft's \"Fix\" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588132", "title": "Windows 8 Desktop Environment for Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46042655", "title": "Windows GUI \u2013 Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 2}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"warn": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"warn": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 799426688, "item_id": 49964168, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49964168", "by": "PaulHoule", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I thought Microsoft had a good idea with Windows 8", "excerpt": "They must have a prototype of an iPad somewhere that can run both iOS and Mac software but they are too comfortable with their current product positioning. I thought Microsoft had a good idea with Windows 8, I mean, I don\u2019t travel with a laptop anymore, just an iPad and wireless mouse and keyboard. If I need to use desktop software I use RDP or something like that. I go to a hackathon and I have both the sleekest and", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple and a hacker's future"}, {"id": 782460753, "item_id": 48903797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903797", "by": "calgoo", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "skipped the crapshow that was windows 8", "excerpt": "I loved the tiled Windows phone ui, felt years ahead of the already aging android look and the god awful iOS look. I use android and iOS daily, and luckily I have been able to add a tiled launcher, with live tiles in android. Also, had ms continued production and not burned goodwill at each turn, as well as skipped the crapshow that was windows 8, we could at least had had 3 providers instead of two.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nokia's 14 Years of Mobile-Phone Supremacy Ended in an Afternoon"}, {"id": 777471504, "item_id": 48591969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591969", "by": "ahartmetz", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Windows 8 was stupid with the tablet-optimized UI, but I thought it was OK aesthetically", "excerpt": "Windows 8 was stupid with the tablet-optimized UI, but I thought it was OK aesthetically, and Windows 10 more so. Even Windows 11 is \"pretty\" if you don't click the wrong thing and get a legacy dialog from 1...\u221e versions back. I use Linux by the way... but not all Windowses look ugly IMO.", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000"}, {"id": 760031555, "item_id": 47501972, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47501972", "by": "oldandboring", "date": "2026-03-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Windows 8 was Vista all over again. Everyone hated it.", "excerpt": "Today's reminder of how old I'm getting: this is totally predictable. Microsoft has been doing this for 30 years. Disclaimer: I'm aware of these things and have used most of them, but really none as a daily driver since Windows 2000. So I'm probably leaving some stuff out. Windows 95 and 98 were great releases. Windows ME was so bad they scrapped the Win9x codebase entirely. Windows 2000 was game-changing. One of the", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft's \"Fix\" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating"}, {"id": 745429936, "item_id": 46589371, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46589371", "by": "evanjrowley", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I miss the Windows 8 UI - one of my unpopular opinions", "excerpt": "Glad to see someone was inspired to do this! I miss the Windows 8 UI - one of my unpopular opinions, which I shall justify here. 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", "context": "daily Windows Server 2012 user", "use_case": "desktop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 8 Desktop Environment for Linux"}, {"id": 736745712, "item_id": 46046607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046607", "by": "patapong", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app. This made it feel quite fast.", "excerpt": "One underappreciated thing about Windows 8 is that even if the start menu was ugly and blocked the entire screen, you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app. This made it feel quite fast. Now on more recent windows editions, I find that I often need to wait for the menu to visually appear before it will accept any keyboard input, and ", "context": "", "use_case": "start menu app launching", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows GUI \u2013 Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)"}, {"id": 735703856, "item_id": 45981491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981491", "by": "ksymph", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've always had a soft spot for Metro design, aka Windows 8 UI.", "excerpt": "I've always had a soft spot for Metro design, aka Windows 8 UI. Win8 as a whole was a mess of course -- but looking beyond the glaring flaws, I think the new direction captured some of that Win95-esque spartan functionality while also having its own sense of personality. The modern minimalist UI hellscape is miserable, but overly skeumorphic designs like Win7 Aero (or Apple Liquid Glass) are obnoxious and cluttered t", "context": "", "use_case": "UI design", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What operating systems, apps, etc. had your favorite UI designs?"}]}