Review by JRH

Once you download Classic Shell (free) for Windows 8, most of your problems with Windows 8 will disappear. The Classic Shell can be customized for further improvement, but just using it as installed makes Windows 8 as easy as Windows 7, plus you have the touch screen capabilities. The email program will still be poor. However, you can buy Office 2010, which works fine on Windows 8. Most of your other applications will also work just the way they used to work. Microsoft really screwed up with the Windows 8 interface, and the upcoming Windows 8.1 is not much better. While not saying it in so many words, a Microsoft spokesperson took 10 minutes to say that users should quit complaining and get used to it. Bottom line, I hated Windows 8 as it came with my new ultrabook. I could barely get it to work where I could do anything productive. With the new shell installed, Win 8 works quite well indeed. If Microsoft had done the shell, I’d give it 5 stars and get used to the new paradigm. There is also a much more expensive Win 8 shell ($5.00) that you might like better.