First. How the fuck did I attack you?

Second. It was a valid question. Think about it, why would you need to close an application?
Using Group Policies and stuff to block users from modifying the Start screen, and transferring existing desktop applications to Metro is kind of great for businesses. Workers will only have access to the stuff they need to do their job, and nothing else.

Because you're done using it? Because it stopped responding? Because it was badly coded and leaks memory like a sieve? Now, would you care to answer my question? How is having to jump through hoops to close an app a superior solution to just being able to hit a button?

I get that you like Windows 8, but if you want to change the minds of those who don't like what they've seen of it you really need to start explaining why the changes are an improvement over the way that Windows 7 currently does things.

Odd, I find grabbing the top of the screen and dragging it to the bottom is easier than hitting a close button. Unlike the close button, you can't miss. You can literally do it with your eyes closed.

That is valid for desktop applications, which you can close by pressing the red X button. :p Metro applications, when not used , are smartly managed by the OS and barely use any system resources.

Responsible admins have always done that.

They aren't interested in anything other than a seamless transition.

Money spent in terms of customizing things that ought to be there right out of the box will not be well received, or even considered.

My largest clients still have a desktop not unlike that you would find in NT 4, and every upgrade they make is to take advantage of under the hood improvements, software/hardware compatibility, and life cycle support.

Quite a bit different than a home user, and quite a bit larger investment as well.

Just drag it from top to bottom.
The focus of Metro is the content, not controls for the user to play with. That's why things like this are removed, and you don't see many controls in Metro applications.

You are still avoiding the primary question I asked: how are the steps one has to take to close apps in metro a superior method to simply being able to click a button to close the app?

This is simply one particular form of an absolutely key question that is asked whenever a new way to doing things is introduced: How is the new way of doing things superior to the old way of doing things? For some reason this always seems to be the toughest question to get an answer to.

3 controls less on the screen. :p

It seems you have no intention of seriously answering my question, so I'll stop wasting my time.

You seem to have no intention of actually reading what I was writing, so, kiss, bye.

When did you buy a 360? Because this is a step up from Spotlight Channel, which is what you used to see when you started your 360. In addition there has always been the option to launch the game in the disk drive immediately on boot. Some 360s even shipped with this as the default setting.

If you're not lying then you're poorly informed or poorly representing the situation. The current launch channel is an improvement. I won't argue that the other channels couldn't be improved by simply deleting the stupid bottom right hand (small) panel which is always an ad. The center channel on other panels shows whatever that channel is about, on the game channel it's normally downloads for new demos or a list of discounted items. I guess you could call that annoying ads, I call that good user interface.

I don't believe in petitions, but voting with the wallet. That worked with Vista. and maybe that will work against Ubuntu Unity as well, if Canonical sees many Ubuntu users switching to e.g. Mint Linux.

I'm still on the fence with Metro UI. Possibly it will make me less productive on desktop PC, but on the other hand maybe I'll think it will be great that it works the same way on tablet and desktop PCs (same argument could be used for Unity, of course...). Thinking of something like ASUS Transformer (which is pretty much a love child of a laptop/netbook and a tablet PC) with Windows 8... In fact, I think future laptops will just have a touchscreen, sometimes detachable just like ASUS. Metro might make that even more feasible than what it is today, who knows?

Welcome to the clever club. Yep. That's how MS sees the future. Their prediction rate isn't very good but it's significantly above zero so we'll see how it pans out.