For me, the answer is "just don't use Metro". I have 3 computers running Win8, only rarely do I use anything in Metro.
Why use Win8, then? Well, it has some nice small core OS improvements over Win7, licenses were cheap, and it will be supported for longer going forward.
If you ever get lost or stuck with a mouse&keyboard, all you have to remember is to hit the "Windows" key on the keyboard until you get to the Metro home screen. From there, Desktop Mode is one click away. Also, Alt+Tab works in Metro, and can take you to any process- metro or desktop.
If you ever get lost or stuck with a mouse&keyboard. . .
This is all true. But the fact that it's even possible to get so lost, and the fact that we don't feel feckless and asinine in sharing hints for how to get out of that situation on a forum for hackers. . . it still betrays a serious, disastrous user experience failure.
Having the user get stuck in situations where they don't know how to accomplish some specific task is probably always going to be an unavoidable risk. But to take the "I have no idea where I am and I have no idea how to get out" level of lost-ness experience that was previously only possible in command-line interfaces, and figure out how to re-create it in a windowed GUI. . . It's really a pretty impressive feat, when you think about it.
Honestly, I didn't want to rag on anybody, but I'm kind of surprised a forum full of hackers managed to get so stuck. Alt+Tab is something I would expect everyone here to know, and it was literally the first shortcut I tried when I got confused on my first foray with Win8. But I suppose use of the keyboard to navigate anything may be a dying art.
What might only be a few moments of confusion for nerds is a brick wall to many other people.
Perhaps that's also something to do with what happened in Redmond. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Windows 8's UI mess is at least partially a product of letting a bunch of technology people get too far inside their own heads.
I utterly failed at helping my aunt figure out metro. I did use alt-tab. But there were multiple other points of failure.
It's been long enough that I don't remember specifics, but I was utterly baffled despite being experienced with keyboard navigation.
Why use Win8, then? Well, it has some nice small core OS improvements over Win7, licenses were cheap, and it will be supported for longer going forward.
If you ever get lost or stuck with a mouse&keyboard, all you have to remember is to hit the "Windows" key on the keyboard until you get to the Metro home screen. From there, Desktop Mode is one click away. Also, Alt+Tab works in Metro, and can take you to any process- metro or desktop.