Unlike Metro, it is completely possible to customize every aspect of the classic desktop. You can even use your own photos as a desktop background!

Note that the same bastards who removed the start menu also eradicated the classic desktop theme. Not that there is anything left from the classic Windows 95 desktop though.
There has been complaining about the lack of 3D Aero effects in Windows 8. I have to say that, while I use Aero myself, I think Aero has no purpose at all on the desktop, especially now that everyone has a computer. The whole point of these 3D glass-like UIs was to pretty up the appearance so the computer didn't look so daunting, back when the PC had just become an affordable commodity item.

I don't understand this, but in Windows 8 there are no more local help files! No internet connection? No help for you!
At the very least, a tutorial for this crap would be nice.

With Windows 7, we had:

• Web-like applications
• Ribbonized applications
• Traditional applications (that use menus)

With Windows 8, we now have:

• Web-like applications
• Ribbonized applications
• Traditional applications
• Applications that use the command bar
• Full-screen Metro "apps"

In other words the count has been brought from three different types to five. So much for simplifying everything.

Thankfully it is still entirely possible to run the applications from older versions of Windows, such as the old Paint application from NT 4.

What is old is now new again.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there was still a 32-bit version of Windows, and that it still supported 16-bit applications. I would have thought that Microsoft would have dumped support for that by now, although I guess tablets are still only 32-bit.