Sven Johannsen

I'm sure you can hide it, like you can in the Office products. I could speculate that the ribbon concept does lend itself to fingers more so than the standard menu bar. With there being some acknowledgement that the tablets (read no physical keyboard and your finger is the mouse) are where it's at, providing some capability to navigate traditional windows interfaces is needed. It is clear MS is considering tablets for Windows 8. Note that most other 'tablet' OSs don't have a file manager concept natively, so fingerizing it doesn't even come up.

I have a couple of devices with Windows on a touch screen, a Media Center with a 24" touch monitor (great), a Dell Duo, and an HP Slate. I find all essentially usable in tablet mode, for those things I would do on tablets, read mail, surf, play games, etc. ( I have an iPad and an Acer Iconia in the house). When I get to more Windowy things, the normal Windows apps do fall short, but they were designed assuming a keyboard and mouse. Nothing on an iPad or an Android phone with a gland condition was designed assuming the user has a keyboard and mouse. Difference is I can add a keyboard, mouse, and big monitor if I choose, to my Slate, if the need arises, and use full on Windows applications. That is worth something to me. I pay for it in boot time and battery life. (Not price though. My 64G Slate was about the same as a 64G iPad.)

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