As much as I dislike the OS formerly known as Metro, I could see my wife using and enjoying Win8. She's learning to use a PC which has Vista 64 bit on it. Since she has no idea of how to use a traditional Start Menu, I think this would be easier to learn and use for her. As long as she can get to FB and her mail, she'll be happy.  

I'm not sure if it's going to be worth $40.00 to upgrade but I certainly would consider it on the PC she uses. Besides, sooner or later some family member will have Win8 and I'll need to be able to navigate the OS to work on it.

Put me down as a Maybe8.

And for some strange reason, the App Store doesn't bother me, while the idea of the Microsoft Store does.  Perhaps it's because the stuff in the App Store is virtually all candy I could live without and the stuff in the Microsoft Store will be meat, potatoes and essential vitamins.

Yeah, that's my concern, that the cost of the OS will blow out as we discover more than useful free apps are now for sale... or that reasonably priced apps cost more in Win 8 because MS has to take a 50% cut on others work/ingenuity/developments.

Anyhow, the main reason I came back into the thread was to ask those with the RTM if they've noticed any significant or important changes from the Release Preview.... as in are there any improvements or are there new/altered features that aren't so good.

I'm currently in the Release Preview and find it not too different than Win 7 when in the desktop mode, though Winstep Xtreme helps make it more usable with WorkShelf and the NextStart start panel... not forgetting Start8 which allows booting directly to the desktop.  With these installed there's never a need to deal with "don't call it Metro anymore" at all and I'm as happy as a hog in muck.  I just hope that we can still use these Stardock and Winstep apps when Win 8 becomes available to the regular public in Oct/Nov.

Amen!

Well lucky, lucky me, I'm currently downloading the RTM for a free 90 trial.... so no waiting to test it out for myself.  Whoooppppeeeee.

I found the info here at Tweaking With Vishal.  From this page there are links to the Microsoft Download Service for the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the Win 8 RTM.

So yeah, it's all legal and above board.  The only thing you need is a valid Hotmail/Livemail account and a password registered with MS.... if you used an account to download the Previews then you can use that one... I did.

Why not, folks... it won't cost you anything to try out the RTM and truly evaluate this OS.

Yes, mate, we really need these apps to bring Win 8 into line with a regular desktop experience.  Without them Win 8 would be a woeful and highly frustrating, hair pulling, tantrum inducing experience, so thank you, thank you, thank you for Winstep Xtreme... it is the difference between giving Win 8 a chance and totally rejecting it as unusable.

While Stardock's Start8 allows users to boot directly to a regular desktop while replacing the start button , I do not like the subsequent tiled menu which more-or-less replicates the Metro UI but in a condensed format [sorry Brad, but it just isn't for me], which is why WSX is so important to me.  The NextStart component provides a workable and familiar start menu that links to everything you'd ever need... what's not to like!!!

Whoa, in the time I took to type this out [approx 15 mins with distractions] [also, one finger typist here] the download has reached 78% and has only 14 mins to go.

Anyhow, it's 4.45am so I'll be back later today [Saturday here in Oz] with opinions/what I've learned about the RTM

Too soon  ...is basically how I feel about Win8.  It seems like Win7 is still new.  It came out 3 years ago and it's not like everyone instantly adopted it.

I don't have an app phone or anything like that, don't care about touch, Win8 really has no new features of interest, and the under the hood improvements don't matter much when Win7x64 runs everything rock solid already.  So even for $40 it's like...why?

I have MSDN access but...meh.

PS - Quote lines are from Zombieland

Well I have the RTM installed and here are my thoughts/observations so far:

1: While the "don't call it Metro" UI is a little prettier than in the Preview releases, I still don't like it and don't want to have to deal with it.

2: The desktop UI looks flat and uninteresting since MS removed Aero.  It will definitely need WB to give it some character and substance.

3: Vistart, a start button/menu replacement app no longer works... did in the previews but not in the RTM, suggesting that MS has implemented blocks for some 3rd party apps that provided start buttons and boot to desktop.

4: The good news is that Winstep Xtreme works without issue in the RTM.... as do Fences CursorFX and Iconpackager.  WB doesn't as yet and I've not tried any of the other Stardock apps.

That's it for now... 'tis past my bedtime at 11.17am

Well, I installed Windows 8 RTM on my Acer Netbook today (upgraded from Windows 7 Pro) and spent a while figuring out how to get rid of Metro entirely, not even moving the cursor to the corners will activate anything with Modern UI (Metro) now!  I tried Start8, but it did not do everything I wanted, and then I tried ViStart ( http://lee-soft.com/vistart/ ), but that did not do what I wanted either and had some right click on the start menu functions that did not work. I finally settled on Classic Shell ( http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/index.html ), which I liked the best for now. When Stardock fixes up Start8 to do more (which I imagine they will), I will definitely switch! Not many software issues when I upgraded, only thing I had to remove was Microsoft Security Essentials (Windows 8 has Windows Defender with the exact same interface), and HiJackThis was not compatible.  Everything else runs just fine.

Oh, and I got it to boot straight to the desktop too, no login, and Metro only flashes for a second or two and then poof!, gone.

So for now, this is what my Windows 8 desktop looks like on my Netbook:

Sorry to hear of your involuntary confinement in the Hoosier State, LS.  Parts of it are not so bad (my home state).

Well, it's not all that bad I guess Daiwa, I do have a nice view of the Wabash River right out my front door!

I kept my Win 7 installation and installed Win 8 on its own partition, but I couldn't update from the Release preview to the RTM, meaning I had to do a clean install and not keep anything.  Oh well!!!  You're right about "don't call it Metro anymore" being unresponsive and a pain to use/get rid of.  It really is a cumbersome, frustrating and patience testing POS.  Thank goodness for 3rd party ingenuity.

Like you, I found Classic Shell to be the best of the apps to disable metro and place a start button/menu on the taskbar, Though I hope Start8 gets a bit more love and eventually meets our needs.  In addition to Classic Shell, though, I use WinStep Xtreme, which provides a ready made start button and menu in NextStart that gives you access to everything the standard Windows one does and more.  I use both because Winstep does not exterminate Metro as yet, though I hope Jorge considers it for future builds/updates.

I still haven't installed everything I'd like in the RTM, but the programs I have installed went in flawlessly and function as advertised, so it is a good OS in that respect.  Moreover, it installed ALL my device drivers without a hitch, something that Win 7 promised but didn't deliver... I still had to manually install my soundcard drivers and some drivers from the motherboard.

Another thing I like better in Win 8 than 7 in the UAC.  It seems nowhere near as intrusive or persistent in Win 8 it takes just one click to give permissions... unlike in Vista and 7, where in most cases it took two.  Unlike in Vista and Win 7, when I couldn't wait to install the Tweak apps to reduce/eradicate its presence, I don't feel as bothered by it in Win 8.

All in all, once you get past "don't call it Metro anymore", Win 8 is a pretty good OS.  It's just a shame that MS forces us to use 3rd party apps to make it that way.  For mine it should be good straight out of the box [with Metro as optional] and not be dependent on 3rd parties to make it functional.  Instead of busying itself with Start8 to make Win 8 usable, Stardock could be focusing on the elements of ObjectDesktop, etc, but no, it is doing Microsoft's job of making an OS functional instead.

Sounds like you're having a lot of fun starkers! UAC is definitely not intrusive on my system either, as I turned the damn thing off completely!  

Vincennes, perhaps?

Nope, Peru (Circus City). 

Ah, yes.  Nice little berg.  Where the traitor Kyle Macy played HS ball.