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Comment by antonioevans | Hacker News Reader

I don't agree. Metro doesn't make sense if you have a desktop with apps on it. It's redundant. I have no access to the numbers but in my office no one uses the Apps except weather. Trying to create a ubiquitous system for tablets/phones/desktop ignores how people use each device.

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I can't stand the desktop with all the window management that is involved, so I generally prefer to just swipe between full screen apps. Sometimes you need to have multiple windows on screen, however, and so the desktop has a purpose, but as Windows moves forward it should be relegated to a secondary role.

It's worse than redundant, it gets in the way.

I upgraded to 8.1 from Win7 last week. My first experience trying to compare a PDF document with text file in another editor was quite unpleasant (Metro essentially makes apps modal, which is nuts).

That's where the grandparent's idea of being able to run Don't-Call-it-Metro apps in a windowed mode comes into play.

Doesn't seem like it should be hard for Microsoft to accomplish. Metro's already supposed to be resolution-independent, so all that's really accomplished by forcing them to be fullscreen on desktop monitors is keeping ease of task switching and information density to an absolute minimum.

You can have Metro apps side-by-side, including next to your desktop apps, right now. Just grab from the top of the screen and drag left or right.

http://i.imgur.com/3IwDXVA.png

Or, don't use Reader. The inclusion of a free PDF reader app with your computer purchase doesn't get in the way of using a desktop program instead.

This is the biggest issue with window management on all new/mobile platforms, they can run multiple apps simultaneously but they can not run multiple instances of the same app! Compare the weather in two cities using the weather app, forget it. Compare two PDF documents with the office app, forget it. Compare two bus routes with your local public transport app, forget it. Why are we creating systems that are worse than what we already have.

Windows 8.1 can run multiple instances/windows of the same app, although the app needs to opt-in to implement support (which the built-in PDF reader, IE and mail client all do).

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