hoak

Fair enough, and I suppose 'self-serve' is a fair analogy to just about all things Linux, and currently that's really the only place anything is going on in the way of 'desktop' TWM development -- but eying is not trying and there are authentic Chinese buffets that are staggeringly good if you're brave enough to go beyond just eying! Fair again, but in a TWM you still manage your own windows; you just don't have to do the same thing multiple times, and most even allow for cascading so that's not a feature or capability sacrificed... Sadly the most advanced TWM interface development is actually going on in production application interface design, though some of these features make their way up the food chain into some Linux TWM's -- there is no one TWM that really offers an encompassing example of 'Thee State Of The Art' as most are built to serve their Developer's pet wish interests that typically revolve around software development -- with almost nothing in the way of demos that will do much to impress the uninitiated. That said and this is where this digression takes me back on topic; when I first saw Windows 8 Metro I thought: 'Oh goody, finally a big gun like Microsoft is going to turn the sheer power of the Dark Side loose on TWM design and we're finally going to see Microsoft do for the TWM what they did for the CWM!'... I'm confident that on learning what Metro really was that my disappointment eclipsed most people's reactions... To put it in a positive light; a favorable and even compelling outcome may yet be possible; both Metro and the Windows 8 Desktop appear to be running inside an OpenGL compositer so there may at least be some infrastructure in place for some real TWM capability. With that we could all have our cake and eat it to, as the ultimate TWM is totally transparent and would allow you to cascade, click and manually sort windows in any manner that you have the time and desire to pursue. But it could also offer the functionality that includes and goes well beyond simple tiling and track sizing, Metro in entire could be run in a window, as could your 'desktop' or even multiple local and remote desktops; data and applications could be 'windowed' or tiled, collated, and sorted and with a single mouse click, you have instantly organized and scrollable chronology, exploded perk, or subject streams etc... Unfortunately this will probably remain more a tinker toy of script and keyboard driven hacking and farting around with the likes of gridmgr and Ion on compiz -- but maybe someday...

Here I must respectfully disagree; a modern TWM bares absolutely no resemblance to any interface features in Windows 1.0, and almost none to what we're calling Metro in Windows 8.. For an introduction to just one (of hundreds) of TWMs that exist for Linux for example, I'd suggest you have a look at Bluetile and watch the introductory video which only gives a cursory look at the features of one very simplistic TWM. More modern and sophisticated TWM's incorporate more modern and sophisticated features like: infinite tiled desktops that can be scrolled (in any direction), zoomed and 'snapped'; various kinds of icon driven program launcher paradigms (most TWM's incorporate or support several, like your 'Desktop' as a window that can be tiled, full screen, or zoomed out into a toolbar), interface control inheritance, PiP or WiW and windows as objects support. As there are nearly as many TWM's as there are popular Linux distributions (scroll down in the Wikipedia article to see only a few that have their own articles) deciding you don't like the idea, would be rather like deciding you thought Linux was a horrible OS after trying one distribution that didn't properly support your hardware because 'Linux didn't support your hardware'. Tuomo Valkonen is considered to be one of the most thoughtful early proponents of TWM design and development, but sadly his 'manifesto' on TWM design that discusses some key concepts and feature is no longer online, but you can still see a brief recitation he wrote about his over a decade old TWM called 'Ion' here... While many early TWM's eschew the use of a mouse, modern TWM's make better use of it then the more familiar CWM (cascading window manager) popularized by Windows, with mouse features that are much more intuitive, fast and natural when used with prefab configurations you can customize your mouse interactions to do amazing things from 'snapping' a group of your favorite applications into a preconfigured tiled layout inside yet another window/tile, to fast navigation with a mouse wheel snapping different menu bars, or switching off real estate consuming 'chrome' with a click.. The benefits of using a TWM are hard to ignore: · can be designed to less resource intensive then cascading windows systems · make drag & drop or cut & paste operations across applications much easer · automates window management · vastly less redundant mouse movement · less eye strain · allow for shared 'inherited' interface widgets further simplifying the interface What's more virtually every commercial production application; from all the Adobe products, Autodesk's applications (the entire CAD and Architecture industry for that matter), Graphic Arts, Pre-Press, Audio Production, Animation, Non-Destructive Editing, Chip Design, Office Suites -- and so many more implement TWM design in their application's root interface anticipating your full screen use of the application and all its tools. Summarily a TWM is about getting the window manager to do the window management not the User -- and while I think everyone is entitled to prefer a CWM, for many I rather think it's like saying they prefer fish to poultry if when they've never tasted poultry... Sorry, got a little carried away there...

I agree, the Metro (I'm still going to call it that) interface is so abject and lobotomized that I bet even casual passive consumption Users will see it for what it is -- a virtual shopping mall that's impossible to organize in any useful way as it's intended to force you to shop/browse and see everything -- just like real shopping malls that are designed make you walk a mile back and forth through multiple levels to get to the only store you really want to shop at. Come hell or high water, or perhaps especially come hell or high water, it doesn't seem likely Microsoft will give up ambitions of it's own 'brand' of walled-garden; they may decide to play nice with it but there's just too much money to be made (they imagine) turning every computing platform into the equivalent of an Xbox 360. If things get really ugly I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft sue Apple for purloining some of the ideas or execution in the Console's virtual store front. But what if Microsoft were able circa Windows 9 to evolve the Metro UI into a full-fledged and high power TWM, something like we we see in Military CCC centers, with features from the Surface Table, form and function along the lines of Minority Report interfaces, all highly configurable and customizable but with consistent, familiar and easy to use default behaviors -- would that appeal to you? They certainly have the resources to pull something like that off, make it look really impressive, and to give it elegant form that follows function and offers real utility...

Looks interesting, I wonder how, or even if he's reconciled the Metro based Windows Recovery interfaces... Metro also has a mountain of Windows Registry entries that I wonder if it's possible to clean up after the fact and get a Registry i/o performance boost for your effort... I'll register and ask on that forum...

Just two news items that are harbingers of the train-wreck the market sector Microsoft is trying to enter is headed for: the first should be a warning shot that while it only effects the Windows RT iteration of the Metro platform -- signs have been all over news for last three quarters that there would be a slow down due to economic hardship and market saturation; the second should rattle anyone fillings, as it's one thing to report a slow-down, but another thing entirely to show losses (even if a almost half a billion is a drop in the bucket for Foxconn, and this is Foxconn -- the company with a factory the size of the State of New Jersey that produces...well just about everything with a microprocessor on it, including make-up production for just about every brand in existence; if Foxconn is hurting you can bet everyone is going to feel it as well and sooner rather then later... Even if Microsoft's Windows 8 and RT Metro design was brilliant, the company couldn't pick a worse time to and push everything to a new platform...

Obviously I'm only guessing, but Microsoft is stagnant, Apple is growing as is the competition for all of Microsoft's cash cow products and services -- in a market that in general isn't seeing much real growth... It has been said Microsoft isn't lean, mean or hungry any longer, and it's a company that still gives the impression that it can bully it's way forward and make anything work if it throws enough money and marketing under its plans -- but in this case I think they're reaching and are late to the party; they see Apple growing using some of the same strategy Microsoft pioneered on it's game consoles, so yes I think they want to roll their own 'walled garden' on everything. Historically Microsoft has made some very graceful recoveries from really horrible product gaffs, has turned marginal ideas into competitive 'AAA' front line 'product', and they obviously still have the resources to do that again, but to me it looks like a company lacking in motivation and guidance -- flailing and failing with a litany of poorly conceived product introductions. Add to this Steve Ballmer owns more stock in the company then anyone else, and is up for retirement before too long... Then there's the rather revealing stories about Microsoft's 'corporate culture' that sounds so surreal and Kafkaesque it makes IBM and the U.S. Government look like models of bureaucratic efficiency and efficacy by comparison. Applying all this to the Windows 8 and beyond; Thurrotf's 'The Desktop Must Die!' comments, with the Metro UI being the embedded UI for boot level Windows systems internals and recovery and even appearing on the Server 2012 product -- are not what I'd consider reassuring signs for the future of the Microsoft OS... Whatever is really going on, it's going to be interesting to watch, and may even open a new window of opportunity for real competition and innovation in the Desktop/Workstation OS venue -- with Kickstarter crowd funding projects hitting a new high, no shortage of brilliant and under employed talent -- the future could be quite interesting! Edit: Charlotte! You're amazing! There are too many fun, witty, and historical references in your posts (that date me) I love your posts!

I'm only guessing, but a lot of this to me looks to be motivated by abject fear; just as we saw with the death of print journalism. I think what we're seeing is the panic fostered by FOSS and the low cost commodification of computing at every level; hardware, OS, enterprise products and services, and even journalism -- against a backdrop of really scary global economics... Hence the bizarre incessant attempts to 'psych up the retards for the trip to the zoo' -- these people know where their bread is buttered, can see and are fearful of the day when it all dries up. Anyone that imagines the Vole is too big, fat, and rich to fail only needs to look at history for a litany of enterprises larger in scale and more flush in the relative economy of their time, and far less reckless and arrogant with even greater resources for continued success that took the long hard fall...

In this case, I'd rather say: 'The Powers That Shouldn't Be'... It seems to me, even those that have become the most cynical of Windows 8 enthusiastically embrace change and novelty, even when it's not necessaries an improvement -- but doesn't come as a detriment to practical considerations like performance, productivity, security -- or summarily results oriented use of a PC. Most of the cynical Pundits (that I know of) were enthusiastically curious about Windows 8, hoping that the 'Metro thing' might be a brilliantly designed TWM, perhaps inspired by Microsoft's Surface R&D (the coffee table not the tablet product)... Instead we got a lobotomized interface that's like something out of Idiocracy or The Marching Morons... I wonder how many that are still enthusiastically embracing and gushing over Windows 8, that don't use a PC as a passive consumption toy, will feel the same a few months from now... At least one Journalist has enough integrity to say he doesn't see the Emperor's New Clothes...

Wow... if Paul Thurrott had the ability to read this a decade... even just five years ago, I bet he'd have quit being a paid shill for Microsoft and all pretensions of being a 'Tech Journalist' or thrown himself off a bridge... Yuck...

Impressive work Tihiy! You may also find some of the exploration and method used here in investigating how Server 2012 boots directly to Desktop after Desktop Experience is installed of interest.

Actually it is possible, however there are some essential Windows control interfaces, like recovery options that are Metro only that you'll loose access to... To boot directly to the Desktop use a little app called Skip Metro Suite for Windows 8 to do the obvious thing... You can also use Classic Shell and a few other apps but they don't skip Metro they still load it and switch to the Desktop or disable the hot corners (yet, but Classic Shell will soon). Then to avoid any inadvertent interference from Metro (for reasons like these), the Author of Skip Metro Suite posts these registry tweaks to disable the Metro panels...

Yes and to amplify the issue you raise; even more of a problem is the fact that the 'Start Screen' will auto arrange, making even rough approximation of an application's icon location unknowable -- though perhaps this can be administered, it's still absurd to expect support personal to tell someone to 'count twenty-two icons over and three down and click on the one that sort of looks an abstract of something abstract'... Back to User level multi-tasking, there are Windows 8 control and management interfaces that are 'Metro Exclusive', ergo they have no replicated functionality in the Control Panel, or MMC -- so at least at this time it's not even a practical consideration for a System Administrator to do something like lock down Metro (if that were even possible) and use a 3rd party 'Start Menu' application to launch applications. This issue, with the shoddy craftsmanship of the Windows 8 interface in general demonstrates the egregious disregard and lack of thought that has gone into the Windows 8 user interface design that's sure to end in costly tragedy as there will no doubt be some large Enterprise that has some sort of preexisting commitment to deploy Windows 8 that won't discover their expensive mistake until it's too late... All this for a passive consumption 'Shopping Mall' interface that forces shoppers to loiter as much as possible; who would think...

Succeed or not, it's very exiting news that you're looking into and working on it! If it's an impractical mess that can't be resolved, well that will be that, but cool cool you're up and at it Tihiy!

The most confounding thing about Windows 8 Metro/Destop interface integration for me (that I don't see getting much play) is that the Metro UI obviates User multi-tasking. Perhaps the lack of attention is down to no good meme to describe the problem; as obviously Windows 8 is a fully multi-tasking OS -- the Metro UI has onerous limitations and egregious issues with respect to User multi-tasking input and monitoring information: · the Charms Bar steals the Desktop · accessing some Windows 8 configuration options is a Metro Only proposition · Metro can only tile two applications at a preset split of approximately 80:20 · there is no prefigured means to launch some applications without Metro While its been exhaustively described how the Windows 8 Metro to Desktop control interface is awkward, inconsistent, obtuse and in some respects totally irreverent of the User -- there is an even bigger disconnect in multi-tasking efficacy. There are mission critical Windows deployments where multiple applications have to be monitored and managed concurrently in real-time (these are neither small in scale or scope; from film and music production, to industrial applications, to police and rescue dispatch operations) where production is managed in the cost per second, or even life and death... It's not difficult to imagine a situation in a deployment like this where a User or Operator inadvertently (or deliberately) trips over Metro obfuscating Desktop applications ending in costly catastrophe due to critical information or input being missed... Even in less critical roles, the onerous aspects Windows 8 interface integration is certain to interrupt everyone's ability to multi-task work flow and applications efficiently and in many cases to be costly in terms of time wasted and general inefficiency that will increase workload frustration. This is not an improvement in user interface design...

Oh dear, some kind soul added working link, I edited out the links that looked like they weren't loading (in Opera) but in IE 10 apparently the the oppsite doesn't work -- cleaned my browser caches and everything before doing it...

Nice work Tihiy! It should be obvious from the strong positive reception you wrapper gets everywhere it's found or posted it has a huge audience of appreciative users. Have you considered creating a wrapper for Explorer libraries from the Windows 8 Developer Release or any of the public builds previous to the CP that also still had a fully functional Start Menu? Some of these builds also allowed you to display not just a Windows 8 Start Menu like this: http://s15.postimage.org/tloh2z3ll/screen739.jpg But also a Charms Menu like this: http://s15.postimage.org/uch78r5yx/333454_windows_8_start_button.jpg Or even depending on your settings and where you pointed your mouse -- both: http://s16.postimage.org/79knmbdk3/bothp.jpg The DP version of the Charms Menu was actually an improvement as it didn't steal the desktop the way the newer Charms Bar does, giving you more Windows 7 legacy Desktop like access to Metro when and/or if you wanted it. It just seems to me that we might get more functionality in all directions using binaries from these earlier builds of Windows 8, but obviously you're the one making the effort and with the man skills so it's your call, and I'm pleased and thank you so much that you've made the effort you have!

Which of these is more appropriate when linking directories locally across different volumes and/or partitions? Both seem to work virtually identically, and from the information I've been able to find the differences are low level and quite technical. So say I have a boot VHD on an NTFS partition (I actually do) and want to use a 'Directory Symbolic Link' or 'Junction' to offer access to an application on the main NTFS partition, again both work, and appear to do so identically, but is one method (mklink /d vs /j) better then the other in this example?

Does anyone know the minimum size fixed VHD that Windows 7 will install to? I'm about to try Mark Wilson's Legacy Boot Chain from Server 2003 on bare metal...

Thanks Jake!

Well I currently have ACPI enabled, and the latest BIOS version for my board; it seems rather foolish to disable ACPI for an OS like Windows 7 -- especially so considing the drives spin down fine with ACPI enabled with nearly a dozen other operating systems, and a lot of the efficiency I'm seeking will disappear if I disable it...

When you have a bootable Windows 7 VHD installed on a Vista or Sever 2008 R2 primary host partition, and boot the Windows 7 VHD system; can it 'see' the host file system (Vista or Sever 2008 R2) on the primary (NTFS on bare metal) partition? There are contradictory comments about this on several forums and blogs; neither I can find no definitive statement in the Microsoft documentation regarding whether the booted VHD system can see the primary boot/host partition (assuming there's only one), though it is clear it can 'see' other volumes...

I have five Western Digital SE16 WD7500AAKS SATA drives, all of which spin-down at the prescribed interval with BSD, Linux, Microsoft Windows XP, and Microsoft Server 2003 -- but with Microsoft Windows 7 none of the drives will spin down regardless of the time interval set in the power profile. I've tried disabling everything that might cause Windows 7 to access disks that would prevent these drives from spinning-down, disabled: the Indexing Service, Performance Counters, Task Scheduler, Windows Defender, SuperFetch, and Write Caching -- in fact I've had Windows 7 down to just fourteen Services running, and still my storage drives won't spin down. Neither am I the only person to experience this issue, there are people on several forums with the same problem including this Feller posting on TechNet that's not making any progress either. I've tried all the trouble-shooting steps discussed on the TechNet forum (and then some) and would appreciate anything anyone here might offer...

Thank you so much cluberti; that sounds as authoratative an answer as we'll ever get! I'm curious though, why you'd suggest /$hf_mig$ might be harmful as virtually ever Microsoft tool, applet, installer I've used recreates any essential directories?

I'd be interested in a definitive answer -- I've read somwhere that this directory and it's subdirectories is used to resolve 'updates of updates' i.e. prevents older versions of files from replacing newer versions: ...but can't find an authoritative source...

I use Windows Messenger 5.1 on Server 2003, it has no advertising, and seems fully protocol compliant with all other MSN client/versions; i.e. file transfers work VOIP works, notification works -- and I really like that the interface isn't junked up with uselsss cruft...