Slashdot Mirror
Why Microsoft Killed the Windows Start Button
Barence writes "Microsoft claims it took the controversial decision to remove the Start button from the traditional Windows desktop because people had stopped using it. The lack of a Start button on the Windows 8 desktop has been one of the most divisive elements of the new user interface, and was widely assumed to have made way for the Metro Start screen. However, Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft, said the telemetry gathered from Windows 7 convinced Microsoft to radically overhaul the Start menu because people were using the taskbar instead. 'When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar,' said Sareen. 'We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option. We're saying "look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it? What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?"'"
Who the hell is their focus group? I've not met a single person who doesn't use the start button.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
All I use it for is to get to the control panel or my computer, and thats because im OCD when it comes to having no icons on my desktop.
I use it all day every day, on 10-100s of servers and desktops. WTF
I hardly ever use my car's emergency brake; but it had damned well better be there, and I expect it to be in the usual spot, like on the floor next to the shifter or high up on the (older American cars). It doesn't belong on the ceiling.
What group of people did they look at to get that impression!? Linux users? They certainly stopped using it... along with Windows for what should be a clearly obvious reason: Microsoft doesn't listen to it's customers.
How are they seeing that? Is Windows phoning home to send usage statistics?
I sure as heck don't just pin everything to the task bar. That takes up room I need for open applications... Do you guys just pin things to the task bar? I've never seen ANYONE's computer with everything just pinned to the task bar.
If you actually use your machine there's not near enough room to start everything from the taskbar. It's annoying to have to jump through hoops to get quicklaunch back. I have 35 icons in quicklaunch right now.
I don't mind windows 8 too much. I don't run any metro apps and so the only real difference I notice with 8 is the start menu is full screen and I have to hit the windows key to get there. They do need some better management tools for it. I somehow ended up with 30 extra tiles and the only way I could figure out how to get rid of them was to do them 1 at a time.
There is a real problem though if you do accidentally open a metro app. There's no obvious way to close it. I had to google it to find out how. That is completely unintuitive.
Users pin apps to the taskbar because the UI for launching apps sucks. Long ago (Win2K) I would make my own folders at the root level in the start menu and group apps in a way that made sense. Win 7 broke my ability to do that without pinning. If Microsoft stopped breaking things that worked well for users they might have more time to 'innovate' actual improvements.
I wonder if they factored accidental pinning into their numbers. I frequently pin windows that I actually intended to close (and it's annoying).
Kinda like the Mac's dock I suppose. Only problem is I have 200+ programs. I can't pin them all to the taskbar; the start menu is still needed. (Also do PEOPLE pin their apps, or was it the annoying install programs doing it automatically? It seems every one of them does it, not me.)
QUOTE: "Sareen also claims that people are taking advantage of keyboard shortcuts to open applications, instead of resorting to the Start menu." ----- That would be fine if my keyboard was not laying on the floor, because I wasn't using it. We still need a mouse-based method to open our programs.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
"What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?"
Git rid of it. That's what we will do!
Yes I pin applications that I use all the time, but for those applications that I seldom use, I like to use the start button.
The "Start" button was writing checks that Microsoft couldn't cash.
Everyone with a hint of savvy probably turned off the reporting to the 'Consumer Experience' team at Microsoft. The ones who didn't are the morons who have 3000 icons on their desktops. We've done this to ourselves.
Have you guys actually USED Windows 8? The interface is fine and dandy to be honest. What's worrying is instead UEFI boot and the inability to load your own programs, at least for the "Metro" interface. Both cut down on competition, one for the OS, the other for how programs themselves are distributed. That's a hell of a lot more worrying than qualms about a modest change in the interface.
I think MS is struggling to stay relevant. The days of ruling the roost are over - they have been for several years now. Apple has kicked their ass - big time - and Linux is this boring worm that is eating their stalk. And LibreOffice and Openoffice are the fungi on the outside.
You see, tech is extremely volatile and capricious. MS had a technical monopoly for what? A couple of decades - if that? Now they're considered some dog on the stock market - the markets have said that MS is a dog. The Markets! MS is a second rate tech company! - Talk to the hand! Apple is the leader - second hand up you bitch!
They are struggling in the sense that they're turning from tech's leader to tech's old stodgy sividend paying widows and orpahn's stock - well; below that because there are better things for them.
If they're going to lie about why they've removed the Start menu, at least they could've been creative with their excuse. I have never seen anyone use the pinning feature to the extent discussed here. I have, however, seen the recent applications section in the Start Menu used extremely frequently.
Removing the Start Menu was a really bad decision, and using the big Metro landing page as a substitute is, to me, an extremely poor alternative. It remains to be seen how everyone else will take it, though.
Maybe there's some correlation between users who don't use the Start Menu, and users who agree to share usage information with Microsoft.
"People were happy with the Apple menu through Mac OS 9 but now that they're using Mac OS X, they prefer to use the dock, and the Apple menu no longer works as an application launcher. So now we're going to have our users use the dock too. Oops, I mean the start menu and the taskbar! Forget what I said about that fruit company's name and the nautical term."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's like they want to force me to do everything by command-line. I practically do anyway, but now that they have 2 ProgramFiles foldres, it can be twice as hard to find shit. That's why the start menu is great. Especially the Windows 7 one that let's you type a few characters into the text entry box, and returns only the programs with those characters in it.
In short, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, MICROSOFT?
Coming soon: 3rd party start menus more susceptible to viruses than Microsoft's (assuming that is possible).
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Well, duh. I pin the (relatively) small selection of programs I use regularly. I pin the most common couple to the taskbar, because space there is really limited. The majority of the ones I pin get pinned to the more spacious start menu, or get put as icons on the desktop. The start menu itself, the full one, is for the programs that're installed but that I don't use constantly. I want them accessible because I do use them, just not every day. Take away the start menu and now I have to find somewhere to hold the icons for the hundred-plus programs I need access to that I'm not using every day (or even every month for that matter). So, Microsoft, if you're going to remove the start menu, what are you replacing it with that serves the same purpose? And if you aren't, why should I bother upgrading to something that makes life harder for me until I have software I have to use that absolutely won't run on what I've got working now?
Why not have the best of both worlds? Have all your new fancy interface and a start button? Same with Unity, although I finally have gotten use to it, I still miss the traditional (GNOME 2) "Start" button.
Just give us both!
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
They are getting this data because the people they are observing are only using 2 applications - Internet Explorer (for Facebook) and Solitaire. (and maybe sometimes iTunes). People who actually use computers use the Start button constantly. Microsoft really doesn't understand that hardcore users are what drive sales, and that non-hardcore users simply follow that existing trend. Windows 8 is looking like a real liability for Microsoft.
I use the start button every day, multiple times. I don't know anyone who doesn't use it, other than those who don't use windows.
Where on earth did they do their testing? Kindergarden?
For one reason... I have probably 50 or 60 apps on my computer of which I probably use 5 or 6 on a regular basis. The other ones I hardly use. I ping those 5, because I don't have to sort through the 50 or 60 apps to find the few I use on a regular basis. Now if you take away that feature, I once again must search through all apps to find the one I want on a much more frequent basis because I will spend most of my time launching those 5 or 6 apps! This is what Windows 7 worked well. I pin items that I launch all the time to my start bar and then I can just launch them with one click. The other items that I rarely use, I don't mind periodically searching for them.
Of all the bullshit spewed out of Microsoft in the past years, this is certainly the most preposterous.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Using Windows 7 I un-pinned everything that was there by default. I don't pin anything to the taskbar and instead use the Start Menu.
I am really hoping that Windows 8 is the least pirated Microsoft operating system ever, not because of DRM but because no-one wants it.
You will say "hey, but you don't use it anymore", and that's true. But, let me tell you my history:
I'm using Linux / Gnome 2, but in my previous work I used Windows 7 for a year (then I switched to Ubuntu, he). And, I gave up using the Start Menu the very same day I installed Launchy.
Pinning the apps I used (maybe being a "task-specific" - work - machine made this easier) helped a lot. But, when I started using Launchy, then there was almost no reason for using the Start Menu. A couple of times I felt surprised of clicking it for launching a program (I still used it for powering off the computer, he).
So, I didn't need it. Maybe for a less-geek user it's still useful (I don't think everybody feel comfortable with typing the app you want instead of clicking on a menu), but hey - I want to think that kind of people tends to use less applications (this can't be true, but maybe a portion of people fits in this category).
but rarely ever to browse through the "folder structure" in there. i type the name of what i want and hit enter. 9 times out of 10 its faster than clicking through the folders. for programs i use regularly i have object dock (an identical dock on each screen) as a quicklaunch. i never liked the way things looked pinned to the taskbar and the windows quicklaunch bar just seemed ugly to me. any suggestions on something that i can replace the start menu search with so that when im forced (kicking and screaming, clutching 7 for dear life) into using 8 ill be able to keep my workflow the same? or maybe ill just use a shell replacement..... any suggestions there?
What's with this new design paradigm to make everything hidden and unintuitive? If you wanted to redesign the start menu that's fine, but couldn't you have at least left the button that opens it? Personally, I'm a power user, so it's not that big of a deal for me to use the hot key, but that doesn't change the fact that a UI design that requires prior knowledge to use it (IE. use the windows key or mouse to the hidden area) is BAD design. There is another hidden area for the "options menu" to get to your shutdown and other useful functionality. And the login screen? Mother of god! No normal person would be able to use this crap without prior coaching, or quite a bit of fumbling around at first trying to "hack" the UI. In my opinion, that is the worst possible offense in UI design. Go back to the drawing board and try again Microsoft.
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
...by my focus group, those drivers I observe leaving parking lots or changing lanes.
Let's get rid of them for ALL drivers!
Microsoft R&D has gone full retard. Seldom-used feature does not equate to NEVER used feature, nor does it equate to NOT NEEDED feature.
They are ingenious. I'm convinced they put the Windows Office Talking Paperclip and the Windows XP Search Puppy to give us a motivation to upgrade away from them.
Gently reply
I pin my "important" apps to the bar, sure. But I've got hundreds of little apps that I may or may not use with regularity, other than regularly using at least one of them which I can't predict depending on my daily "tasks".
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I have never had anything to do with surveys or statistical analysis but it seems to me that the data they gathered is invalid because they only got the telemetry from people who opted in to the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program. I would guess a very large percentage of those users didn't have a clue that they were opting in. Assuming there is no correlation between willingness to opt in and the computer literacy of the user, the sample group looks to me like it is skewed towards those users who are less computer savvy. If there is a correlation between computer literacy and the willingness to opt in ( which would be my guess ) then the sample group would be even more skewed. My guess is that the more literate you are and the more history you know about a company like Microsoft, the less likely you would be to share anything you don't have to with them. Wouldn't you need a representative cross section of users to make the claim that the start button isn't being used?
TFA gives hints about the development process, but goes little into the removal of Start. Understandably anything that can be in the Start Menu can be directly dumped onto the taskbar, such as the "Start Menu folder," like drawers from the CDE days or the icon folders from the Windows 3.1 days. Security wise, some security apps disable the Start Menu altogether, creating icons for the worker's applications on the desktop or putting them into the taskbar.
Doesn't explain why the new Start always consumes the entire screen; it's not like Gnome3, Ubuntu Unity, OS X Stacks & OS X Dashboard is that hard to copy.
I like the Start menu because it's efficient. It's one-stop shopping for just about everything your PC can do. Getting rid of it for a more diffused and dumbed down "Metro" screen that overlays the desktop makes no sense. The taskbar wasn't competing with the Start menu, it was Start menu "lite". There's no need for the Start menu itself to go away. Metro will just slow me down. Now I'll just have to click through more GUI layers to get to what I want instead of having it all right there in the Start menu. Dumb move, Microsoft.
Hey Microsoft when nobody buys Windows 8 and your market share is erroded by penguins and fruits... will there be anyone left to care about your telemetry?
They removed it because it isn't actually necessary and the removal of it can be called an added feature as people try and figure out why in the world they would bother upgrading to yet another version of Windows.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Ok, so I punched the "start" button, clicked on Firefox, brought up Slashdot, and find that according to a focus group, I no longer use the "start" button. But I.... I just... (looking over in the left corner) I ... just now... and about a thousand times yesterday... WTF?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Is it possible that the focus group thought they were talking about phones? Where the "start" button is absolutely *not* appropriate? (As any user of Windows Mobile knows to their absolute frustration.) Or... maybe they thought that the testers were talking about touch interfaces in general, where again, "start" is not appropriate?
And nobody considered that in a classic KVM interface, it or something like it is pretty much mandatory?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They wanted a taskbar that's all buttons like Apple has. But now Apple allows start menu-style folders on their app bar. I guess they realized people don't want 80 icons crowding their screen all the time. When will MS come full circle?
"What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?"
Kill it!
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Who needs the Start button. To start e.g. Excel 2007, I just do the following:
Windows key + R
Enter "cmd" and click "OK"
cd c:\
dir
cd "Program Files"
dir | more
cd "Microsoft Office"
dir
cd "Office12"
dir *.exe | more
excel.exe
exit
Why not get rid of the taskbar as well. Windows 8 is going to be so much fun.
Among other things, I use it when I shutdown at the end of the day.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
With quicklaunch items the icons stay in the same position until you make a change. This allows you to quickly find the icon since you know exactly where it will be.
When something is pinned to the taskbar, if it isn't the first icon and you have a variable number of intervening programs running, each of which has a variable number of windows open, then the icon could be anywhere and you have to look for it.
Then again, this analysis is premised on having the taskbar configured to show a button for each window that's open... because I'm not an asshole that has 50 windows open at a time AND I like being able to access a particular window without having a magical mystery list pop up...
Ugh... I'm just glad I know enough about computers to use an operating system where I have real meaningful choices when it comes to my desktop environment.
Grandma using Windows 8 for the first time
Now from the task bar you have your own customized menu tree to launch the apps. It is the closest thing to "Program Manager" of Windows 3.2. It is better because you can auto hide the task bar and make it always on top. Thus even when the icons on the desk top are all covered by launched windows, you can quickly launch yet another instance of cygwin terminal window.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's an old saw, but one these spiffy Gen Y programmers would do well to remember.
Powerusers opt-out of that stupid telemetry crap. Only newbies are letting Microsoft know what & where they click.
I guess us powerusers should start turning that crap on so our behaviorialisms are considered in studies like this.
SOMEBODY at Microsoft must be signing up their friends for user interface testing and getting them to leave bad feedback. I don't know who, but they're doing a GREAT job sabotaging Microsoft's flagship products... first UAC, then the Office ribbon, then Windows Search, then Bing, then rearranging control panels in each new version of Windows, and now removing the start button! How can they do it all with a straight face?
Microsoft Interviewer: "Please launch notepad."
Rouge Tester: "Sure! I'll just double-click this README.txt on the desktop."
MI: "Um.. okay, can you create a new document in notepad?"
RT: "Aww... I just edit the README everytime... see, it's got all my notes and everything."
MI: ...
RT: "I use to use the Start menu, but now it gives me vertigo."
MI: "Vertigo?"
RT: "Yeah -- I was puking buckets everytime I opened it."
MI: ...
RT: "Buckets. Totally."
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I happened to monitor the debate on the Microsoft forums on the start button and the sentiment among users was *overwhelmingly* "Don't TAKE MY START BUTTON AWAY!" This is just another example of some self-absorbed Microsoft "genius" with a brainwave that there's a "better" way to do something. The start button was just too obvious and simple. Well, listen up, genius, whoever you are. YOU ARE NOT STEVE JOBS AND NEVER WILL BE. You *do not* know better.
FAIL, FAIL, HUMAN FACTORS FAIL....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
So every copy of Win7 has been telling MS what we've been clicking???
Ok, I know they mean the data gleaned from following the activities of their poxy focus group guinea pigs, but In The Real World, who wants the task bar crowded with pinned shortcuts? Lets see what I have on MY taskbar:
Windows Explorer
Firefox
Thunderbird
And thats it.
Even my desktop is minimal.
I think it is a great idea and we should use it in other situations too. Like the dinner table. The pasta spoon was used 4 times to serve pasta from the bowl to your plate. But the dinner fork was dipped into the plate 104 times. Pasta lost it 26 to 1. Let us eliminate pasta spoon from the table to improve efficiency.
The function int main(int argc, char **argv) was called just once. But the function int getc() was called 2.5 billion times. So to improve efficiency let us remove the main() program.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Yes, I pin most of my commonly used apps to the quick launch bar. BUT -- those are not the only apps I use. Only the ones I use most frequently go on the quick launch bar. The rest, and there are many of them, need to be accessed somehow, and the START button is a very convenient way to get to them.
You know what would be great? If you designed your UI so that we had a CHOICE about whether to adopt your latest "great idea", or just keep using the system we've grown used to. You know...the way we're most productive?
90% of what I do often is on the taskbar. 90% of what I do is on the start menu, as there is simply not room nor reason to pin everything I use once a week, or even perhaps once a day for 5 minutes, to the taskbar. Dropping the start menu simply make Windows 8's desktop harder to use and forces cluttering the screen with tiles, as badly as the people who covered their screens with shortcuts anc could not find anything that wasn't on their desktop for them to click. It is a poor and very limiting design, and will significantly slow the adoption of Windows 8 in complex business environments where there are multiple applications that simply don't fit, or belong, on the taskbar. Big indicator of the difficulty inherent in managing by numbers vs common sense.
The first rule of looking like you're actually doing something still, rather than just treading water badly until you drown: "If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is".
My copy of Windows 7 has a -great- UI... cause I ripped out most of the native UI, and replaced it all with various 3rd party applications that don't suck as badly...
What a strange way to argue for something. Basically reading what what Microsoft's program manager said: we changed around the interface completely so people couldn't do work the way they used to any longer. So they worked around it and then and started to do things in a way that wasn't efficient as the old way, but was the only way they could be remotely efficient.
It's strange because Apple has pretty much always been known for good interfaces (and yes, I know it's currently trendy on Slashdot to bash Apple at the moment) and they've only really had 2 of them.
MS Makes a new one every OS and wonders why nobody is impressed.
"When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar.
Windows 7 is the first MS OS I like for this exact reason. Too bad it took 10 years to copy OS X.
The answer is Linux. It's never been easier to use.
Here are but a few reasons for making the switch.
I have never received a virus in 12 years.
Cheap to free OS and Software.
HIGHLY CONFIGURABLE. You want a Start Button, fine.
You don't want a start button, that's fine too.
You want it to look like any version of Windows, Fine
You want it to look like OSX, Fine.
To many to list. It's so sad that we all have been so
brain washed via advertisements "and believe me they work"
into sucking us into buying something WE DO NOT WANT.
Quit watching advertisements as much as much as one can
and think for yourself. You will be rewarded.
Dear Valued Customer,
On-Star telemetry shows you rarely use your turn signals when changing lanes and we're striving to "do something about it." We've also noticed you use your audio system menu controls frequently. Because of the audio controls' popularity in our usage statistics from participating customers, future models will eliminate the turn signal stalk in favor of a user-configurable option, allowing you to scroll a tiny screen and search through audio options while making lane changes. Note that you can now change the audio feedback from the traditional clicking relay sound of a turn signal to one of several pre-loaded "ringtones" just like your cell phone. Furthermore, for an additional fee, Microsoft now offers a "plus" package with many more audio themes for your turn-signal.
Thank you for participating in our telemetry feedback programs as we strive to constantly improve our products!
There still needs to be a way to access seldom used programs.
On the other hand, it really doesn't affect me since all my new computers since Vista have run Linux.
I would agree that the use of the Start button has decreased with Windows 7, as more people pin their most used applications to the taskbar. This feature made one aspect of the Start button obsolete, or at least less efficient. If Microsoft can implement more efficient and intuitive functions than every Start button feature, then they should, as that is the essence of progress. Though, no matter what, I am not very confident that Microsoft will be able to make vast improvements on the remaining functionality of the Start button.
nobody uses the start button because everybody who would use it installed classic shell on top of it: http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/
I've never really used the start button, except to shut down (go figure), that is until windows 7, which, as others have said, has a (very) useful search.
So as long as they keep a quickly accessible search/run entry box and a way to sleep, poweroff or reboot easily I couldn't care less what they do with the start button. I always used the quick launch bar, and now pinning for web browser(s), filesystem browser(s), email, putty, cmd, text editor(s), office apps and a few other apps. Everything else is on the desktop. I sort of preferred the quick launch bar for it's simplicity, but I'm used to pinning now, so it's fine. I see others have similar feelings about pinning.
Though I guess I'm hardly the typical windows user, but apparently they don't use the start button either.
Try using Windows 8 in a Virtual Machine. Moving the mouse into the lower left corner is impossible when doing so moves the mouse out of the vm window. Added bonus: My keyboard lacks a Windows Button.
Lets just say it's more than a minor annoyance.
First they took away the Reset button my my PC. Now this. When will it every end?
History repeats itself, and we will return to the UI of Windows 3.1
Most people will pin 20% of the application they use 80% of the time.
Then we have the other 80% of the application we need 20% of the time. Yes I am only using the start bar 20% of the time... However it is because I still need to access the other 80% of my apps. Windows 8 doesn't allow drill down, which kinda stinks, I was thinking of Coding my own Start Bar for Desktop mode.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I may be a bit unusual, but it doesn't seem like much of a problem for me. I don't use icons, docks, pins, or a start menu. I just use keyboard shortcuts. If a program is important enough, it gets a key binding. If it's not, I type its name in to launch to it. If Windows 8 allows for this functionality, it would work just fine for me. Though, I rarely open anything that isn't a virtual terminal, web browser, or graphical file manager.
They seem to be saying that they've decided to make a change that only people who opted in to the Windows Experience Improvement Program (a tiny minority of users who didn't mind Misro$oft being able to track everything they did with their computers). The practical upshot of this is that they're effectively telling potential future users "If you want to have some say in how the OS evolves, LET US WATCH YOU do everything you do with YOUR computer." At the same time, pinning everything to the task bar is rather like having icons in a flat pseudo-window along the bottom of the screen, which is very similar to Windows 3.x worked, except instead of windows cluttering the desktop, the icons now reside in a flattened window at the bottom (or top, or side) of the screen.
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Naturally being unable simply to provide users the OPTION to pick what kind of desktop they want, Misro$oft is shoving the new interface down users' throats, because they think they should have the right to dictate to you what you do with your own computer. What they aren't counting on is that if the fools who didn't mind being spied on also didn't use 90% of what made the OS useful, so they rip it out of the next version, and as a result the usefulness of the new version is 90% LESS THAN the old one, the vast majority of people will reject it the same way they did that dog of a piece of software Windows Vista. This is not unexpected, Misro$oft only seems to come close to getting it right every OTHER Windows version, like 3.11, (but not 95 that BSOD'ed close to daily,) 98, (but not ME) XP, (but not Vista) and now 7. I predict 8 will be another DONOTWANT OS.
All we can hope is that this is a mistake of proportions that M$ cannot afford to make, and this will be another factor in driving Misro$oft out of business finally.
What a beautiful day that will be, maybe we can eventually even be free of the Misro$oft TAX. I was in a... let's call it "Guy's Electronics"... store the other day, and I asked if they had any laptops that weren't made by Apple that didn't have an OS preinstalled, or at least not one from Misro$oft. The mealymouthed asshole douchebag of a salesdickhead tried to excuse and justify why they didn't, and pointed out that the amount of money I was being asked to spend extra for having to buy Windows whether I liked it or not, was not as much as buying a copy without a computer.
Even after telling him the first thing I was going to do with the new laptop I was buying was install LinuxMint on it, he said there was no way to avoid buying Windows buying any of their non-Apple branded computers. I smiled back, and asked him HOW MUCH EXACTLY he figured I was spending, and he pulled the figure $50.00 out of his ass. I then told him fine, I'd buy the laptop (the one I was looking at) if he knocked $50.00 off the price. Needless to say, I left "Guy's" without a new laptop, which is fine, they just sell overpriced shit there anyway... guess I'll have to go to the internet to find one WITHOUT Windows preinstalled.
Hey, remember when the courts made Misro$oft install competitors browsers and place icons where users of newly installed OS's would easily find them? We should do the same to computer manufacturers. Wouldn't that be wonderful, if computers came preinstalled with a fully-functional install (including all drivers) of some one or more freeware OS's, and you could remove the OS version(s) you don't use, and came with restore discs?
The Start Menu gives access to the over 200 programs on my computer. Show me a "pinned" bar that allows that without making it unusable.
Yes, novice and low-level users will stick with just a few apps, which they can "pin," and they dominate the "telemetry" statistics. But every sysadmin for that computer will have a boatload of tools THEY need to access, and won't be able to any longer.
Microsoft: Trumping "Penny wise and pound foolish" with more "surveys and focus groups" that exclude the majority of the people who actually drive the PURCHASE decision!
Instead of making it a canvas for your cute puppy pics, it should be a giant frequency display. If 95% of my time is spend on Visual Studio or the browser, shouldn't there be proportionally-sized startup icons for those apps. Shouldn't utility information like time, date, calendar, and performance metrics be front-and-center?
Instead, when I start up my machine I'm staring at a bunch of tiny icons and a background I see for split seconds at a time since I'm going to be hopping straight into an app anyway.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I pin my most used applications to the taskbar, but I use the start menu all the time. I can't open multiple Windows of the same app (like cmd, windows explorer, etc) using a pinned icon.
The taskbar and a menu button are very important IMO. (and a major reason Gnome 3 sucks so badly)
"Windows 8" re-enable start menu
I use pin-to-taskbar for my most-used programs.
90% of my usage of the start menu in Windows 7, like many others, is the quick search for the lesser-used programs I know are there but don't want to bother to find in the hierarchy. Win key + first few letters + Enter is indeed very efficient, and the UI is non-intrusive.
(9.9% is the control panel and sleep buttons, and the other 0.1% is finding things in the hierarchy.)
The real problem I have with the Windows 8 way is that the quick search functionality causes two full-screen transitions - one to display the Metro UI, and another to switch back to the desktop when launching the program. It's usable, but jarring.
If you use a keyboard with no Windows key [Ctrl]+[Esc] works as well. (My keyboard will be old enough to drink next year.)
This article/nonstory is about marketing and/or the focus on the hypothesis that M$ can and should attempt to unify their interface design across all hardware platforms. (It's efficient for M$, and it implies touchscreens for everyone, whether you need of want them or not. In the long run, this tends to support the transition to tablets or docked smartphones.)
Currently, there are usually 3 or 4 different ways to open a program or execute a task.
Start Word THEN Open a Word file
Desktop Icon [[]] File menu, select OPEN, navigate, select file icon, click the OPEN command
Start Menu Icon [[]] CTRL - O, navigage, double-click
Or just Highlight a file's icon in Explorer or it's shortcut on the Desktop, or it's icon on the Dessktop + hit [Enter]
The method you 'choose' depends on what you've learned about Windows (or who you learned from), your preferences and how much you value efficiency. Anyone I've met who wants or needs to be productive and is shown a quicker way to execute a command of repetitive sequence, uses keyboard equivalents or macros.
Workstations saddled with the need to support all this monkey motion may actually become less productive for everyone but the John Anderton's of the world who are ultimately freed from the need of touching anything physical. Are we all headed toward the Kinnect?
Why not? I say, sensors everywhere for everyone!! (That way, if you're a bad boy, Bit Brother can just stop recognizing your right to interface.)
How do they know this? I use the start button every day. How do they know that people don't use it.....?
Is there a secret counter that counts every time I open it?
... Metro just simply sucks. My cellphone doesn't play Crysis and I can't dock it either - I still need a PC with a usable desktop!
But when we put the newest beta on a bunch of tablets we got for testing here, no one could figure out how to open the "Start Screen" without using a stylus. We googled and figured out how to "alt+tab" with a swipe but who is going to be able to figure out how to use Win8 without reading a book first?
FYI I work in IT and we used Win8 on the desktop a while. The start button would make this a no-brainer. I think their target group must be on bath salts or something.
Wow, MS has been training people to use the start menu since 1995! How many generations of people have learned to use it? At least four or five.
Next we'll hear that users don't use the graphical user interface. Get rid of the windows and bitmaps. Have the NT kernel boot up and run GNU Screen.
"Users pin apps to the taskbar because the UI for launching apps sucks."
Actually I pin them so that I can quickly start them. You know; Win-1 to start the first program, Win-2 the second, and so on. I'll admit: I'm lazy. That's the only reason these programs are there.
That and it makes work easier on me. I have my main app open,click on another and Win-1 moves me right back.
But that doesn't mean I don't use the Start menu any longer.
Without the start button, how TF do you shutdown - restart
Hey, I am still using XP and don't want to buy a new computer yet.
I use it, but not as often as I pin stuff. I usually search for apps because the scrolling programs list is more difficult than the one that exploded across the screen. But I typically use just a few apps which are pinned (or the equivalent): Windows Explorer, Firefox, Putty, Winamp, Notepad++. How often do I use it? Maybe once a day. I can see where Microsoft is coming from. In the case of my personal use, they're expanding what I use the most, but I still like what is going on now: the taskbar and Flip3D. But then, I'm also a user that likes functionality and I'd like to think functional-lovers are a dying breed. Many of the people out there think the iPhone is awesome, so every thing should be like the springboard and needs to be flashy at the sacrifice of functionality.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
There is an inverse relationship between frequency of use and where the entry point to the program is stored. I pin a few frequently used programs, use desktop program category folders to organize commonly used programs -- like 'media' for lightroom, media monkey and so forth, 'finance' for financial analysis and trading programs and so forth. The 'start' menu catalog is used for everything else. I would love to be able to have user-defined groups within the start menu instead of the vendor alpha order -- then I could dispense with my desktop folders. But removing the 'start' entry forces me to rely on my own folder collection to find programs -- I have far too much varied stuff for 'pinning' to be an adequate substitute.
what all you pinners and start-button pushers really want is a key-stroke launcher... no searching, no clicking, just type the name of the app and press enter...
Old people and young people don't use it. They put icons on the desktop and think that's all they need to be using and ever need to access. But that's because these people don't use their computers as tools or for work. Trust me, I deal with college kids who literally ask "Where's the start menu?" every freaking time I try to do my tech support.
Look like i'll just stick with vista then. I'm an old school windows user since 3.0, I actually take the time to customize the start menu and quick launch, this sucks for me, why not just make it optional microsoft use it if you want or turn it off, Gates would never have approved this fiasco in the making damn it!!!!!!!
In Windows 8, if I search for 'update', it prominently says "no results". Intuitively I think "oh it must not be there" not "oh I should look over at the right column and see there is a category that has more than '0' to find the results.
IIRC, Win7 will display all the results rather than forcing you to switch categories.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Removing the Start Button because it's rarely used is like removing the jack from your car because it's rarely used. Frequency of use is a different quality than necessity.
"The plural of anecdote is not data" -- Bruce Schneier
When I played with Win8 I thought it was a tad awkward on the desktop, and heard cries of 'but it's designed for tablet and would be an *awesome* tablet interface. I was left scratching my head, perfectly aware of all the tiny hotcorners and hidden UI features. Hotcorners are very much a mouse-type feature that is awkward for touch. And the 'right click' to bring up metro menus (which are somewhat similar to the lower right hotcorner but not really) I didn't see mapping to a tablet either... I *assumed* that at least the windows key would exist on a tablet, but the rest.....
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problem is that anyone with half a clue turns off the privacy-invading telemetry ("Customer Improvement Program") in Windows. So the metrics Microsoft collects come exclusively from the users without a clue.
Besides, how many people are still on XP? I'd bet start button usage is higher there. I don't care what Microsoft wants to make the default settings, but I don't understand why they feel they must not give us a choice. Heck, why not design the whole Explorer GUI with XML (sort of like Firefox does for its user interface) and let users customize it however we want? Also let us set a registry key to use unsigned themes instead of hacking a DLL.
To the extent that home power users still use x86 desktops, it's because they are an open, flexible, and customizable platform (as opposed to ultra-locked-down, consumption oriented ARM devices). Microsoft needs to recognize that fact and go with it. As for business users, who are even more important to MS's bottom line, most businesses do not want to have to re-train people for no good reason.
After they "revamped" the Start menu, nobody could find things in there anymore. Applications would come and go from the "recently used" list, search assumes you remembered the spelling of the program name correctly, and for inexplicable reasons "All Programs" didn't necessarily list all the programs actually installed. The "scroll bar" solution to too many programs in the menu is an ugly hack. So, I can see why people would start pinning things to the taskbar just to restore some stability to the mess Microsoft made of the Start menu versus the previous version, which wasn't nearly smart but at least it was predictable. Oh, and all of this assumes that people figured out what the unlabeled spherical Windows logo in the corner meant (the "Orb of Confusion" also present in the Ribbon interface).
Now they want to do away with it? Perhaps they should listen more closely to the feedback about the problems with the previous revision. They are mistaking people's solutions to Win 7 Start bar deficiencies as a sign that it isn't needed at all. No, they need to revert some of the changes or at least offer some of the old, simpler functionality as an option. Why else would there be so many Windows 7 Start menu replacements that basically turn things back to the way they are, Classic Shell being only one of them? Many people don't like the Win 7 Start menu. Deal with that problem instead of giving up and abolishing it.
Let me guess. This is the same "focus group" that forced us to put up with Clippy for years, and who came up with the brilliant idea to implement the Ribbon with no option to use the old, classic interface. I'm fine with UI experiments, but at least keep old functionality as a configurable option when it is practical. Wait, no, it's worse than that. They based it on the "Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program", which is one of the first thing most competent users turn off. As someone else has noted, we've brought this on ourselves. :-(
'When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar,' said Sareen. 'We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option. We're saying "look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it? What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?"'"
Is it just me that finds this kind of use of language intensely, massively, irritating?
I've seen a few Microsoft interviews where they talk like this. Is it just a MS corporate thing, or is this the new American BusinessSpeak?
We're saying 'look, we've heard how you're using the language, and we've listened to you, and we'd really, really like you to go ahead and use this super-amazing language we all share in a way that doesn't empower and inspire these very valued conversation partners to acts of what we call 'homicidal rage'.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
There idea works for tablets / phones
But on a desktop where you have bigger screens and more then once screen.
Full screen apps do not fix work flows as well.
A full screen app launcher is a poor way to do it VS a pop up menu. Now have a lot of icons on your desktop for launching can work till the point where it get's to be to much and that is where a start menu can work well.
The windows 7 start menu with most used apps have a side bar with Recent doc is very cool.
Also what about a app that was a few differnt modes or differnt sub apps a stat menu can work well. Let take a game where in the start menu folder you can have the game, the map editor , the unit editor , art editor , ECT all in a pop out menu that does not take up a lot space in a launcher page.
you can't bitch about who won if you didn't vote
Hence why I vote a straight Libertarian ticket. Likewise, the laptop into which I'm typing this comment runs neither Windows nor Mac OS X.
It's fine when your applications consist of:
* Your P&S photo suite
* MSIE
* iTunes
* Microsoft Works (Er, Office Starter Edition)
* That's it
If you work in an office, be it an accountant, system administrator, software engineer, graphic designer, architect, etc. and have 30 software packages installed to do your work, the taskbar will become an absolute nightmare, about as easy to follow as a desktop loaded with 800 icons. Where the hell is $foo?
Why oh why is Microsoft destroying everything about Windows that doesn't suck?
Microsoft, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
You have plenty that is broken:
* Windows/Microsoft updates still require eleventyteen thousand reboots.
* Security is still horribly broken
* Registry bloat over time is still a problem
* Winsxs bloat is a huge problem
* Fragmentation is still a huge problem
* UAC is still brain dead but also ineffective
* USB still sucks. Why must a device re-enumerate and be re-installed as a different device if it is moved from port to port? I *HATE* that! Every other OS does it far more intelligently
* Licensing cost is still outrageous - why should people choose Windows servers over F/OSS solutions?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
But I don't like it not because it is different, because it does not help me in what I do. I don't pin stuff since I just load windows with the 4 apps I run all the time in the startup script. I Run VMWare Player, Firefox, Task Manager, and Ram Monitor. I start up those programs and then go as I need fit. When I run other things, I CLICK to them, I don't use shortcuts as that is how 90% of my navigation is done in a UI. I associate my files to some program. I want to open an excel file, I click it and it opens. The only time I ever go to start, I use my recent apps and usually it is there. If not, I know how to find it quickly (even though I hate the reverse listing in Windows7, I want folders first, then individual apps.
My keyboard does not have a windows key (It is an old IBM model 80) which I have had for 20 years and love since I can type accurately on it since you have to push hard enough to click the keys, and cannot sloppily hit other keys accidentally. If I cannot click on start, I use control+escape. Same thing.
If this is the direction MS wants to go, then I will leave them like I left Ubuntu when Unity was forced (Or stay on Windows 7 unless I get a FREE copy of windows 8. I won't pay for it). The UI is the most important aspect of an OS, and if it is shit, then I am gone. Hiding things, and making it "easier" or "cleaner" is not what I care about, I want it functional and able to be catered to what I know and like to do. This is not an "get off my lawn" rant, just a simple you are misjudging your target audience rant. Yes the dumb 13 year old kid who knows nothing better does not use the start bar, because they don't know how to crap on a computer, and are taught just to click the pinned app and have never begun to explore what a truly powerful OS can do. And that is what Windows was. A truly powerful OS. Neuter the UI, and it becomes shit that mystics and old wizards like me are the only ones that know how to do anything because we are the only ones who remember all the command codes to do anything powerful.
Oh my fucking God! I'm going to Flux/OpenBox. I'm tired of the tiles, jewels, and bangly, big-buttoned food-trough-water over-excited dog wetting shit!
The party's over
I've just prefixed all key bindings for my window managers with the start-key, without it my PC will just be a overpriced backlit picture frame, with a static background picture! :)
Damn you Microsoft...
</trolling>
Good to see that slashdot haven't lost it capability to bash Microsoft for what might very well be a sensible move.
So how do they expect people to find the programs they want to pin to the task bar in the first place? Browse through C:\Program Files??
I love this. MS is going to destroy themselves. One stupid-ass decision at a time.
are needed to overcome the deficiencies in Window 7 task starting. I use the Start button to open infrequently used programs or Control Panel. I only pin Windows Explorer (which I use heavily). All other common apps go to RocketDock. I keep the desktop clean.
I use 7 Taskbar Tweaker because the default unchangeable behavior of the taskbar insists on grouping icons for the same app together. I want them in the order opened. For example I may have 4 notepad windows open. I don't want them stacked and I don't necessarily want them all grouped together. Only 7TT (or similar 3rd-party products) seem to allow this.
RocketDock
7 Taskbar Tweaker
It would seem to me that the only people they're watching is their own employees, maybe a couple of small focus groups. To say that most everyone isn't using a Start button would mean they were snooping on our activities.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The people who let the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement thingy suck up their bandwidth to report feature usage are precisely those people who pin everything.
I honestly don't know a single person who doesn't use the start menu. The correct thing to do isn't to get rid of it but have an option to turn it off the first time you visit the desktop. Now that "Start" is no more I can promiss start menu usage will be going down.
Don't, don't don't let's start.
I use the start button to get to the programs i don't use everyday and to shut down the computer reboot the computer and when its not in use it disapeers. I do pin to the task bar but i want my desktop relatively clear i like my backgrounds. I don't beleave this for a minute this is MSs way for more desktop real estate, ads and so on and for the PC makers to dump more crap to. I don't need or want a speed bump to the desktop .
Jack of all trades,master of none
I still have a "Start" button on my XP SP3?!?
So how were they spying on us to figure this out? [...] To say that most everyone isn't using a Start button would mean they were snooping on our activities.
No need to guess, it's the Customer Experience Improvement Program. This is turned off by most experienced users for the privacy reasons you mention, and blocked by group policy at most companies. So Microsoft is getting a sample that is heavily loaded with the most inexperienced Windows users.
Just leave it there for those who use it (even if a minority), and those who want to pin can just not use it.
I am also in the minority that uses keyboard shortcuts rather than mouse clicks, but what is the harm to the "majority" who don't use it in just leaving it there?
For the love of all that is unholy... "People don't use the 'Start Button?'" and "People use keyboard shortcuts.."
When?! Where?! WHO are these mysterious users?
Ctrl + and "Fn + 1-12" are two of the best kept secrets in using a computer. Rare is the day when I encounter someone that knows how to do either of these.
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
It used to be that the start menu had a direct click to program files, which had a nice list of shortcuts to what you had installed.
Then installer crammed a million things into it, making it an unusably long list.
So they change it to be a scrolling window, that required multiple clicks to do exactly the same thing. Which makes it generally kind of a huge waste of time compared to windows button + start typing.
I used to use the start menu all the time, but they made it slower to use, so I don't any more.
is the start button.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Anyone who knows anything about computers turns off the reporting to Microsoft feature. I launch almost all of the .msc's by going to Start> and typing it in the search bar, I do the same thing for command prompt and powershell. Also why the hell is the Metro UI in Server 2012? Who the hell is going to managing a server from a tablet?
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
..Start to Stop?
The start button was invented so that people who had hardly used a computer could identify the first thing they should do to get to their program, then they can make guesses along the way all the way until they're at the selection they want. I think everyone has just gotten used to it but the start menu is overall pretty crappy. Just the menu with the lowest learning curve.
Most of the quicksilver style launching applications are much better options with a just barely higher learning curve plus the added benefit of not having to remove your hands from the keyboard. I have always hated the start button I am surprised to see so many of you defending it. It's borne of the same thinking that created control panel category view.
I know! They could have a text field grab focus as soon as the start button is clicked and whatever the user starts typing, it finds it instantly. That'd be so cool and efficient and everyone would use it...oh wait....
People avoid using the start menu for 2 maybe 3 reasons.
1. The start menu is full of company branding abuse not organization. e.g. start=>programs=>company name=>software division=>product series=>launch video editor
It's not perfect, but Gnome 3's menu is more or less organized by what the software does. e.g. "start"=>video applications=>launch video editor
2. Many programs automatically install icons on the desktop AND quick launch bar; no "need" to use the start menu (insert desktop housekeeping argument here)
3. In IT, many deployed programs are given direct launch access via icons on the desktop or quick launch bar, partly because of reason #1.
SINGLE splash screens could fix problem #1, then software could be grouped by default based on what it does, not who made it; but users could still organize it however they want later.
All of you have not see the major problem here, How MS are getting their data, Spying on every windows user. What they do, Why they do it, How you do it, besides all the other data they are collecting from every broken windows system, God help windows users when MS lock windows 8 down so tight the only thing they'll be able to move it their eye lids,
Do you know if you can search the contents of a pdf file without a 3rd-party ifilter?
I ask because in Windows 7, you need a 3rd-party ifilter to search the contents of a pdf file. There is no built-in support.
passetspike!
We are seeing people pin like crazy.
Great. But they forgot to figure out what people use the Start button for when they do use it: To Discover What's On Their System.
It's true that once someone fully discovers their system, and pins all their frequent items, then they don't need to use the Start button much anymore.
But the value of the Start button is DISCOVERABILITY. Discoverability is absolutely essential for new users, and it's absolutely essential for those moments when you realize that you might have something already installed on your computer that you haven't discovered yet.
Therefore, if you take discoverability away:
(1) You hurt your new users the most.
(2) You hurt your experienced users when they want to learn new things.
It's likely that Microsoft UI designers did one of the following:
(a) they never considered that you can optimize for pinning without also dis-optimizing for discoverability, or,
(b) they forgot to investigate the principle of discoverability and its fundamental importance to the computing experience.
The new slogan: "Microsoft- You'll Get Used to It!"
/still not used to ribbon interface
//seriously? I have to click "new color" on the "design" tab/ribbon/whatever to change the hyperlink underline color in PowerPoint?
I refuse to think MS is actually dumb enough to believe no one uses the start button, I also refuse to believe they actually found a substantial amount of real world users who said they dont or use the start button.
Personally I chose to believe they are lying and made up this polled fact just so they can force windows 8 into the tablet market and no other reason. MS wants to be in the tablet so bad they are forcing windows 8 to be tablet friendly in an attempt to get it shoe horned into tablets. Its obvious this version of windows they dont really care about desktop/pc users since its obviously geared to the tablet market. MS is just playing catch up is all, they tried to play catchup when the smartphone market exploded and now they are playing catchup to the tablet market.
Personally I dont care about windows 8 really. Its a OS that I have 0 interest in. Windows is just like the star trek movie curse, everyother one is good. Windows 3.1 is good, windows 95 was shit, windows 98 was good, windows ME was shit, windows xp was good, windows vista was shit, windows 7 was good, so following the pattern windows 8 will be shit.
I always use the start menu, but only because the program search feature is located there. I usually hit the start key on the keyboard, then type a few letters of the program I want until it pops up in the results field.
I select items from the Start menu in order to Pin them in the first place...
It's like a restaurant removing the menus because everyone just tells the waiter what they want...
Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft, said the telemetry gathered from Windows 7
Is it just me, or is that a rather frightening comment? Just who is MS watching, and how fine is the detail???
Three Squirrels
This isn't new. Microsoft has been making the start menu harder and harder to use ever since Windows '9x, and adding more fancy options to try and counter that. If they aren't aware that they are doing this they need to step back and look at the progression.
On Windows '98, the start menu would adjust size to the number of items. It could take up the entire screen. It cascaded to the right as you opened folders. If the novice user merely hovered over a folder it would expand to the right so that the the existing folders didn't move so it wasn't intrusive. It said "Start" so if you had no clue what to do with windows, you knew what to do.
On Windows 7 the start menu is a fixed height. So if you have more items than fit in that fixed area, you must scroll, even if the items would have fit on the screen just fine. There is no hover. When you click on a category, it expands the item vertically, shifting all the other options down. If there wasn't a scroll bar before, now there is! That scroll bar makes you lose horizontal space too, cutting off some folder names and possibly adding a horizontal scroll bar. If that wasn't the category you wanted, you must click again to close it whereas in '98 you just kept moving your mouse.
They completely forgot why they made the start menu. It was single-click access to the list of programs, and one more click to run. No shifting, moving, or scrolling. I like pinning things too, but it doesn't work for everything.
Grandma using Windows 8 for the first time.
Jesus H. Christ! I just watched a few of these videos and it looks like Windows 8 is a disaster of EPIC proportions. I'm a network architect with almost 20 years in the industry and I was as helpless as Nan was.
What a totally and utterly unintuitive piece of crap Windows 8 is. I thought Vista had issues but Windows 8 takes fail to a whole new level. I'd rather have Windows 98 ME FFS!
Most people were probably using the START menu wrong anyway. I rarely go into the "Programs" branch. In my start menu, I have shortcuts to "my computer", "C", "D", "E". Then I also have a handful of folders on the start menu "admin", "grafx", "misc", "multimedia", "text etc", "net" and "games". These are loaded with the appropriate shortcuts to everything I use. I find it very fast for navigating.
I should point out, I am on XP with "classic start menu" as well. I also have only 5 quickstart icons. "Show Desktop" (now that I am starting to use Win-D, I could probably get rid of that), Firefox, Thunderbird, music folder, and "blank.scr".
I am getting older (curmudgeonly?), but I am an electronics tech working with robot submarines (ROV) for a living, so I am not totally inept with computers and technology. I've used CrApple and Win Vista and Win7. Have nothing I can think of that I can say I like about the UIs.
All these giant icons waste screen real estate, and make me wonder "Is this the version for the visually impaired?
Pinning? Haven't quite figured that out. Never seems to do what I would want it to when I tried on my wife's Win7 machine.
Also on wife's Win7 machine, I am wondering "is that a quick launch icon, or is something running".
Now they want me to run a cell phone operating system on my laptop? WTF!?!
*sigh*
If they are taking features out of windows because users are consistently not using them, by all means, get rid of internet explorer!
Well, we'll see what their telemetry says in Metro - I'm guessing people will flock back to the Start button. Oh wait....
Pinning to the taskbar is no different than adding shortcuts to the quick launch(XP).
I pin items to the taskbar for most commonly used apps. FF, Chrome, Libre Office, Virtual Box and a few random games.
However, I still use the start button for searching for those non-frequent apps. services.msc, msconfig, and a few other maintenance types that are run every month or so.
IMHO, I think dropping the start button is not a bad idea, but rather dumb if it is only for aesthetic purposes.
"That's right...I said it."
UX 101. If you have a feature that's this divisive, just make it optional! Heck, I don't care if they turn the start menu button off by default. Just give me an easy way to enable or disable it, then both sides can have their cake. Why is this so hard?
Seriously, if that's the future of computing, I'm not sure I want to live.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
leaving the 90%+ of us who use wide-screen monitors a nice little gun slit through which to read our vertically-oriented documents. What's not to love?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
...as I hate my phone. Yay consistency.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Massively irritates me too. I think we need a new term for this type of overblown pseudo-hipster-scientific corporate-ese.
My humble suggestion: douche-speak
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Reading through all the posts shows me that different people do things in a different way.
That should be the metric. All too often we hear "I do this!" I do that!", and yes that works. As far as I am concerned, the strength of an operating system is allowing people to work as they want - not to dictate to them. If someone wants Windows classic, by God, they should be able to invoke Windows classic.
Because the Operating system is there to help you do your work, and not get in your way.
My own preferences were XP in classic mode, OSX in the form that has been pretty consistent forever. But those are just my preferences, they aren't better or worse than any other preferences. It's not being a luddite, it's just that my visit to the OS isn't that important. I just want to do it, do it quickly, and get on with work. Microsoft just eliminated a very nice preference.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
A regular business user might not use it. Home users the same (I use it less as a home user)
System Admins use it. I have way to many items to pin to the taskbar and it is hard to find stuff on the desktop.
Regular business + Home users probably account for 95% + of the audience so system admins and the rest are screwed?
It is not like most of us can just go and use another OS. *****What is the problem with offering choice?******
The START button hasn't been labeled START for quite some time: both Vista and Win7 removed the word and put a Windows logo on it instead. Novice users would have no reason to click what is now just "yet another icon" that basically looks non-functional. Tell a novice user to press the START button: they'll never find it.
Losing the button was always going to happen from the day they took START off, a wording that was obviously intended for novice users.
So it's confirmed -- Microsoft not only is run by evil and stupid people, they are now stupid enough to hinder their own evil plans. Before (under Gates) it was the opposite -- evil enough to rescue their stupid plans.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Solution: Pin Start Button to Task Bar!!!
DUH. WINNING!
Why is this deemed a whole article on slashdot?
AccountKiller
Coupled with search, I barely have to touch the mouse sometimes. Yes, the focus group appears to be maybe 10 senior managers at Microsoft or something.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
No wonder I couldn't find the damn thing for my mother when I tried using her computer -- and she seemingly can't handle the "complex" approach of PrntScrn -> image editor. (I wonder how hard it would be to set Win7 up to open the Snipping Tool when the user hits PrintScreen, like I'm used to in KDE/Linux.)
Apathy Sucks, Nobody for President!
"What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?"
I know, I know!
KILL IT!
That'll give it some new power!
People have forgotten that the reason the Start Menu lost popularity after Vista is because they actually removed basic GUI rules (like that things should stay in the order they have been placed in unless told otherwise) and made it 'interactive' which means you have to wait ages for it to do anything.
Of 500 people I asked, from all around the world, all 500 replied that they use the start-button on a regular basis, including 17 who don't own a computer of any kind, and another 11 who said further that they have never even seen, nor ever used a computer. Three tribesmen from a remote village in Nairobi who had never seen a white man, an electrical device or a computer also said they use the start button on a regular basis, but seemed confused as to why they were using it, since they also have never seen or even come within a hundred miles of a copy of Microsoft Windows.
Though they seemed amazed at my light skin, and that of my guides, the bizarre sight, (to their eyes,) of the all-terrain jeep that got me to their village, they nevertheless responded with outrage and concern when I told them that Windows 8 was not going to have a start button, and immediately began praying to the local gods of the river and the trees that Microsoft would relent, and include a start-button of some kind either enabled by default, or as an option, in their upcoming edition of their flagship operating system, despite also having no idea what a flagship, an edition, or an operating system was, or who Microsoft is and why they should care.
It was hard to get to all these various places to canvas people for to learn their start-button usage habits, but at least now I have many thousands of frequent flier miles.
Please give this account of my survey the widest possible dissemination. (Tell your friends!)
Start Button "Sareen, what does the telemetry say about pin apps call count?"
Sareen "It's over nine THAUSAAAAAAAAAND!"
Start Button "What, nine thausand? there's no way that can be right."
Secretarial staff in my workplace appear to be unable to use anything on their computer for which there is no icon on the desktop. They don't use the start button. They will sit and wait for hours for someone to come and create a shortcut for them instead of using the start button.
I saw this headline and skimmed the article before heading out to work.
I spoke with a dozen people at as many different companies and asked them if they used the start menu. If they didn't say no immediately, they asked what it was then said no.
I asked how they accessed their programs. The answers were a combination of pinned applications, desktop shortcuts, and toolbar shortcuts.
I asked how they setup the shortcuts and pinned applications. They said, in various ways, that they went into the start menu and through various means, created their shortcuts/pinning from there.
I pointed out that they, by their own description, used the start menu. They replied with variations from "Yes, but just to setup the [shortcut/pinning]." to "Yes, but not very often."
I asked how they would do that without having a start menu. Responses varied from annoyance to realization.
TLDR: As an all-purpose technician, I expect to make a fair amount of money from Windows 8 UI issues, especially with the desktop cleanup feature.
Also, for the pinned app users, don't you find it a little less easy to launch multiple instances of a program?
A recently leaked draft copy of Windows 9 will have no start menu, nor taskbar, nor icons, since their focus group says people don't use them, or will stop using them by the ship-date of Windows 9, currently scheduled for first quarter, 2015. It will use a flat interface device consisting of a large number of spring-loaded momentary-on switches in a primary group arrayed about 13 switches wide, by 4 or 5 rows high, with labels describing their functions embossed on the top of each. There will still be provisions for the use of a mouse input device, though it won't really be needed or capable of doing much besides selecting text, since there will only be a single window, as their focus-group testing indicated people only use one at a time, anyway.
When you boot Windows 9, it will start off clean and blank, then display a single window with a black background that encompasses the entire screen. Near the upper left corner, it will display a persistent splash-screen-like block of text that indicates the version of Windows, and copyright information, the system's date and time, and finally will indicate both the system's caret location or working directory, as well as the system's readiness to accept input, by displaying a 'greater-than' symbol, after the directory name. As the user executes programs, the text will eventually scroll discretely off the top of the screen. It should look something like this:
Starting Microsoft Windows...
Microsoft Windows 9 (Build 7.01.2600.2)
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp., 2014, 2012, 2009, 2006, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1995, 1992, 1990, 1987, 1985, 1982, 1981.
Date: 01-January-2014
Time: 12:00 A.M.
C:\> _
Windows 10 will drop support for the mouse altogether, since no one will use it anymore, according to focus groups. Meanwhile Apple will go the opposite direction, and OS-X Zebra will eschew the board with row upon row of momentary-on switches altogether, in favor of a single scroll/gesture wheel affixed to the back of the mouse. The next version of OS-X after that will only have a mouse, and a microphone, and Tina (the Virtual OS Assistant) will carry out all your commands, but will require internet access to do anything at all, including booting up.
Finally, the makers of various distros of Linux will shit themselves trying to figure out whose lead to follow, which interface to ape, and some will support only the keyboard natively, some only mouse, and some will require you to have at least 3 different keyboards plugged in at once, but will only work if you also have mice plugged in, in an exact prime-number multiple of the number of keyboards attached to your system minus the number of monitors. One mouse at least must be corded.
Windows 11 will support only a true continuous-feed paper-roll based teletype as the primary display, though it will also support up to 32,768 plasma screens, 16,384 rear-projection TV's, or up to two HD-TV displays, as long as they conform to the DTCP+/5C DRM standard, but in order to work the computer has to run a check every time you reboot, via the internet to ensure compliance, the process takes 100% of your computer's power, and runs for about 10 minutes. If your internet connection is in any way flaky or not fast enough, the process restarts. Also, 500GB of HDD space are required, as is a sample of your blood, hair, and feces.
Windows 12 will be operable only via direct programming using switches that will be mounted on the front of your computer, which will be, to house all these switches and the wiring supporting them, about the size of a large refrigerator. Apples' iOS-X, code named Zya'iinqolina, (pronounced "bob") will operate on devices that come in two pieces, one goes around your head, and comes with a warning that it may cause mild headaches in a small number of users, who should revert to using an OS-X Zebra based system, and a second component that may be inserted anally, vaginally, or inside the penis, that reads your thoughts directly, as long as you keep paying Appl
Yeah, let's auto open a cmd.exe shell at start up and work the unix way.
By the same logic, people only ever use the shutdown mechanism of the OS once every session, so it should probably be removed too.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
This is a relief... http://www.neowin.net/news/classic-shell-brings-classic-start-menu-to-windows-8
Classic Start Menu and Classic Shell are about the 1st things I install after making a clean install.
So it took MS almost 20 years to reverse on something that was a stupid decision from the start? And they've replaced it with something... worse, from a user-interface perspective?
Oh well, people will just accept it as always. If you had any hope left for the human race, the way they follow a leader no matter how much he sucks is your evidence that your hopes are misplaced.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Many commenters are saying that in Windows 8 there is still a start menu, but instead of the start button you access it via the Windows key...
So what about those of us that are still sticking to our model M's?
If Windows 8 is not usabe without the Windows key, then I won't use it. I prefer changing my operating system rather than changing my keyboard.
I have spent a month or so using Windows 8 to develop a desktop based app (weird, yeah, but there's a reason. can't go into it).
Anyway, it took me a while to understand this: Metro is the Start Menu.
And I do not understand why Microsoft doesn't just say that.
Now, I am speaking from a desktop perspective. I mean, that if you use Windows 8 primarily as a desktop app (ie, not on a tablet), the only thing MS needs to tell you is that Metro is your start menu. That's it. Once you "get" that it kinda works. They need to do a few simple things to finish that metaphor, but it's there.
I didn't really realize this until the latest release because previously i was running Win8 in a Parallels VM window. And Parallels by default lets the mouse automatically switch between the two OSs just by moving around. Since I was in the window, i could never hit the 'corner' to get to Metro easily (where the start menu was).
However, in the latest RC the mouse was broken in parallels and was pinned to the window. This changed everything for me. I could pin to the corner, launch metro (as if it was a Start Menu) very quickly and naturally.
Now before you all start yelling "but it's not the start menu". No, it's not. There are some things they need to add to make it more that, but basically it's there.
And it makes the ARM/Intel break perfect in my mind. You want desktop, you use intel and have desktop. Otherwise, you "just" have the start menu (metro) which by the way has applications that can run in it.
Try to think of it this way and I'm sure you'll find it works.
The biggest thing they need to do (IMO) to finish this is that when you install a 'desktop' app, there's a stub launcher in Metro for it (like shortcuts in the desktop). You do that and you're 99% there as "metro-is-start-menu".
Of course metro is much more.
What I don't get is why MS doesn't explain this. And when I read this crap, I just sigh.
> "look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it?"
look, my windows desktop usage is dropping, what can I do about it?
Aah the good old Start button.
Why did I stop using it? Oh yeah! Because since Windows Vista the way the Start menu, and in specifically the 'All programs' feature works, is completely messed up.
Way to go Microsoft! I always was fond of the Start Menu workings of Windows XP. A real shame I can't replicate the behavior since the Vista era without 3rd party tools. Without these tools, I don't use it either. It becomes a cluttered mess when you have more then 10 programs installed and 'All programs' LIST it underneath each other.
I prefer to have the listing of my programs spread out so I have a general overview of all my installed applications so I am able to find the application I need quickly. Why is that forbidden and taboo in the Microsoft world?
Please Microsoft, explain this to me.
... as it fades away, Windows will look more and more like Mac OS X with a "dock"...
(chuckles)
I've "pinned" apps to the Mac OS X dock from the Applications and Applications/Utilities folders.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, M$ will say the task bar is not a dock. Yeah, right.
So we went from a cluttered desktop in Windows 3.1 to a Start Menu in Windows 95. Since the Start Menut never caught by users in accounting and my parents, neither of whom can function without an icon on the desktop, we're going back to clutter.
They are giving the users what they want.
So, I am going to pin my control panel to my taskbar? no thank you.
I like the start button. hell, Ubuntu sort of even has one. I use both.
Jeff
No...you are going to pin your Start Button to the task bar now...! ;-)
I don't used pin'ed crap on my task bar - takes up too much room.
I brought back the "Quick Launch" area... and balance the
wanting to get out of the operating system business. they have lost complete confidence from every one of their users. myself will be going to some form of free Linux distro and their community supported apps. nothing wrong with that. Microsoft should try working WITH the community instead of second guessing and putting out crap OS and crap apps. focus groups do not work. never have, never will. they just do not have enough of a spread over the whole gamut of users. just an observation since 1985. believe it or dont.
yes, so right - isn't that the point, make a customisable desktop because everybody likes to do it their way
http://www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dd85p7JZXNy8&ei=FzPuT5LPM8X_6QHI-uWbCg&usg=AFQjCNEnBj2T0kaaxMDnH5ATRhBNRhCTPw
Yes. It is still just as easy as pressing the Windows key, then typing to start your search.
Except that, after hitting enter, you are switched back to the metro interface, you have to make your selection, which then switches back to the Win7 interfaces and launches tour app.
Also in Win7, results appear and are refined as you type and includes full desktop search, not just a search for installed software...
Microsoft are effectively selling you the same thing every year.
Something that allows you to overlap and resize apps (oh and some memory management and application launching, and some really bad APIs)
Now they've removed the windows part effectively (after being dog stupid all these years) they _HAVE_ to remove something so people see this as different, and buy it.
It is why they change .doc compatibility every release. It is why they changed the filename extension to docx. Microsoft cash cows are funded by idiots, and their money is what they are using as a guide here.
Fuck Microsoft, and fuck the astroturfers who tried to start that "whoah, hating on Microsoft is so old" thing a while back.
Microsoft set the Internet back by ten years.
I recall that replicating a desktop on a computer screen was the pinnacle of innovation. But the paradigm is shifting. There is no longer a lot of value in showing a big empty computer screen by default.
Don't forget the discussions about widgets for IOS that fills a screen with app icons like the old Windows 3.1 program manager used to do. Why fill a screen with icons that show nothing when you could display selected widgets instead.
But none of this is new. Remember desktop widgets and their "push" technology? The metro front end is just a front end. I am sure you can still have the old start button.
I believe a principal product manager or whatever should be fired - whatever her telemetry is telling her -- in order to PIN something, you have to have a place to PIN "from" -- what a dingle berry he or she is... ps. we fired the IE 4.0 team, we should fire the Windows 8 gui team too for that oversight.
long live Netscape Navigator 4.05 --
The nightmare continues.
"Microsoft, said the telemetry gathered" This ultimately shows Microsoft is secretly monitoring all your machines that has windows operating systems on them. Stop using Windows. Use Linux Ubuntu. It is away more efficient machine and easy to navigate and best of all it is FREEEEEEEEEE. Ubuntu also has close to over 60,000 different software you can install thats in the back office. It also comes with all your office programs and graphics editors. Bill Gates........EAT YOUR HEART OUT.
Gnome and KDE easily allow the user to add or remove the main menu/"start button"...xfce, lxde and openbox, etc. allow for customization as well and it doesn't blow anyone's mind. I've seen plenty of "average users" adapt to these interfaces without struggling.
Would it radically alter the Windows documentation and training to include the option of pinning a start menu to the taskbar? It seems there are plenty of other customization options they're willing to throw at users in the past few years. I understand Microsoft likes to cram interfaces down everyone's throats in an attempt to make them the de facto standard, but this Metro move seems to be shooting them in the foot; so much negative press before the product even ships, and I would think they'd still have the bad taste of Vista in their mouths.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
that was responsible for wanting the Chiclet keyboards on the new ThinkPads?? Sure sounds like it.
Microsoft is desperate and betting the farm - leveraging the Windows desktop UI to promote the Metro UI (and Windows phones, tablets).
It is deliberately forcing the user into a new paradigm: Live tiles, Charms, horizontal scrolling, lock screen (on a desktop).
And if you don't like it, you're a *insert shaming language*.