Windows 8: A First Look

We pry open a copy of Microsoft's first public release of Windows 8.

The Search screen now comes up automatically if you start typing in the Start menu. Note how the system segregates searches type, a nice touch that makes resulting screens less cluttered. One major thing that's so far missing here is all the right-click functionality that is available in current Windows versions. On XP, Vista and Windows 7, you right-click on a search result item to display the full contextual menu for that item. With Metro search results, you can't do that yet. So far, anyway, all I could do was click directly on the item to launch it. That's a net loss of functionality. Further irony: it's possible to just hover over a search result to get a little more information about it, but I couldn't actually copy or export any of that information. It's strictly visual. I'm assuming there will be a way to default to the old Search functionality in the release code – I won't be the only person asking for this, I'm sure. The new Search is more visually appealing, but it's way less useful at this stage in the game.