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Microsoft Killed the Start Menu Because No One Uses It
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft recently killed the Start Menu, and their explanation for it seems fairly straightforward: no one used it. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but Microsoft explains that use of the Start menu dipped by 11 percent between Windows Vista and Windows 7, with many specialized Start functions — such as exploring pictures — declining as much as 61 percent."
So in Windows 8 (for those that tried the demo, yes I downloaded the ISO and setup a VM to try it) they replaced the simple little menu in the start button with a whole screen monstrosity that takes the entire desktop. Taking over my whole desktop because I pushed the start button isn't the answer to this problem. IMO people don't use the start menu much because they put icons of their most used programs in the quick launch tool bar and on the desktop itself. Instead they take a simple menu, blow it up full screen and if you decide you don't want to pick a program and go back to what you have running, there is no logical way to do it (there isn't a close button that's obvious, ESC doesn't work, right click doesn't work). That's fucked up.
Gnome3 and Ubuntu's solution to doing away with the start button is far better than what MS has cooked up and I don't really like those either but I can see them working better). If I fail that badly using their "NEW AND IMPROVED" start menu I can't even comprehend how disastrous this will be for the less computer literate. The best part is, you cannot bring back the old start menu that I could find. It's not in the control panel, the options are gone from the right click menu, etc.
MS is making a huge mistake overlaying their Windows Phone 7 Metro interface on windows. This is a huge fuckup that's obviously being done to use the windows monopoly against the phone competition. It's going to backfire and damage windows just like Vista did.