Windows 8 Metro.

Windows 8 Desktop.

On the same computer, but, as implemented by Microsoft in Windows 8, you might as well be using them on separate computers linked by a MALP through a stargate!

“Can we all just get along?”

One of the few issues I have with Windows 8, and in particular, Windows 8 Metro apps, is the fact that using any of them turns out to be an either/or proposition.

You either use the app, or you don’t.

The fluidity with which one has gotten accustomed to multitasking in Windows breaks, and startlingly so.

Unfortunately, if you have multiple monitors, this problem is much compounded.

And, I use multiple monitors.

On all my systems, except the lappers.

Finally, and with Windows 8, Microsoft seemed to have come to the realization that regular folks use Windows in multi-monitor situations.

Unfortunately, as is often with Microsoft, in what seems to be a bad case of someone going with Max Romeo and the Upsetters’ One Step Forward, Bad Microsoft comes to fore, and taketh away the goodness of such a discovery by implementing Windows 8 multi-monitor support in a totally half-assed a manner that leaves much to be desired, lousing up what could have been a great user experience.

However, that is a rant for another blog post.

Don’t get me wrong: Windows 8 does multitask both Metro apps and Desktop apps. However, the way it is implemented is nothing short of appalling.

Please don’t tell me that nonsense about pinned apps! That’s all well and good. However, there are some pretty cool Metro apps that folks would like to interact with. However, once you lose focus by concentrating on the desktop, interactivity is lost.

How useful is that?

These days, it seems Microsoft's new position regarding feedback is that they know better, disregarding all user experience fails.

Thankfully, Stardock saw this, and has taken advantage of the opportunity.

Stardock ModernMix is just a jewel of an app.

It brings Windows 8 Metro interactivity to the desktop in ways most users expect Windows 8 expect.

And it works.

It just works!

It works on my HP z600 Personal Workstation and on my Surface Pro device. It works with touch and non-touch Windows 8 PCs. It even works in Windows 8 VMs

I am able to run Metro apps in a Desktop window side-by-side with desktop applications, and better yet, cut-and-paste between them effortlessly.

Best of all, I have been able to eliminate the wasted space of an entire 30” HP ZR30w monitor that I had previously devoted to just Metro apps. This has vastly improved my productivity, and greatly enhanced the desirability, and usefulness, of Windows 8 Metro apps.

This is very good.

It is my belief that this app is one of the products that Microsoft NEEDS in order to make Windows 8 rock. It makes Windows 8 more useful. Immediately.

While it isn’t as polished as other Microsoft Metro apps, or desktop apps for that matter, with some glitches in use, such as having to return apps to Metro mode in order to access their settings and more, there is no doubt in my mind that Microsoft should do their Windows 8 users a great service and buy ModernMix from Stardock, develop and nice it up further, and ultimately slipstream it into a ‘critical’ patch ASAP.

All Windows users will thank you, Redmond.

In the interim, ModernMix is the latest recipient of our SmallBizWindows Superstar Award, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all Windows users.

Many thanks to Stardock’s Spencer Scott (Twitter @islanddog) for this opportunity, and for all his assistance over the past several years on ALL Stardock products. You rock, Double-S!

© 2002 – 2013, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited