Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Won't Bring Back the Start Menu Until 2015
DroidJason1 (3589319) writes "Microsoft recently announced plans to reintroduce the Start Menu to Windows in an upcoming version of the operating system. While the plan was to roll out an update to Windows 8.1 and offer the Start menu later this year, it seems like this is no longer the case. Now Microsoft is reportedly looking to release the Start Menu with Windows 9, which is expected in April of 2015. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have faced a boat load of criticism and hatred, partly due to the removal of the Start button and Start menu. The restoration of a visible Start button on the taskbar was one of the key features of the Windows 8.1 update, released back in October of 2013."
I was forced to use Windows 8 because it's packaged in my new laptop, and a change in OS means I need to spend more money. So I gave it a try but I never liked it. I think, I might get used to it, if all the PCs I use (home/office/remote) are all Windows 8. If MS wants everybody to like Windows 8, they should have killed all other versions that uses the START button. i.e. Windows Update that automatically disables the start menu for Windows XP to Windows 7. Then everybody will be forced to grow accustomed to it.
Microsoft seems to be intentionally upholding the old meme about 'every other OS released by Microsoft sucking'.
After a while, you really have to wonder why they keep doing this.
Windows 8 is shit, from top to bottom.
Then how come the only criticism ever levied against it is the UI? Performance? Better than 7. Stability? Better than 7. Security? Better than 7. System requirements? Better than 7. The only thing you can legitimately criticize are subjective components like the interface, which some people like myself actually *prefer* to the start menu.
No flames here. For any new OS Microsoft craps out, there will be people forced for various reasons to try to live with it. That you managed to do so is more a credit to you than to Microsoft.
That said, the solution for me was a system restore to Windows 7, and Windows 8 goes back on the shelf until... 2015 I guess. But I can see where there are some cases where that isn't possible.
(And yes, I know there's third party solutions to many of Windows 8's issues... but like you, I have to get work done.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
One thing about Microsoft that I don't understand is its seeming slowness at doing simple things. OK, everyone agrees there has to be a Start Menu, it is not hard to implement (see lots of 3rd party apps doing just that), it will not break any existing Windows functionality, MS has virtually unlimited highly skilled resources, yet this obvious simple improvement takes months (if not years) to release. Let alone the fact that this problem should never have existed in the first place.
The most glaring example of this to me is the default setting of "hide extensions for known file types". I think it first showed up in XP, but why would you ever want that turned on?
horror vacui
The ribbon gui in msoffice drove many people to switch to LibreOffice.
Given the proportion in market share between Open/LibreOffice and MS Office, by "many" you mean something like 0.1%?
LibreOffice didn't exist before the stupid ribbon gui was launched. Today million users use LibreOffice instead of propriety msoffice, more like 10-20% market share. And most of the people still forced to use msoffice hate the ribbon gui. Still HATE it.
The missing start menu drove many people to switch to Linux.
See above.
(in practice, most people who don't like the new Win8 UI just stay on Win7)
Windows8 is preinstalled to a larger degree than msoffice is. Ordinary people cannot be bothered to reinstall windows7.
The destruction of win32 (a good API in it's time) drove many developers to switch to Linux/posix.
What destruction? You can still take a program written against Win32 API as it was in NT 3.1, recompile it, and it'll run on Win8. Heck, you don't even have to recompile if the architecture matches.
win64 was a lost opportunity to fix win32 and make it good, instead we got "win32 for 64-bit windows", which is stupid and wrong. MS got cold feet, marketed other technologies as .net instead of making win32 the best system api. Now 64-bit posix is a much better choice. Because 64-bit is on every system today, embedded, mobile, desktop, servers. Having a 32-bit api when using 64-bit hardware sucks.
OK. I'll take this on...
You acknowledge that the interface is a serious PITA. So what does Microsoft do to resolve the issues people have with it? They move the charm from the lower left corner in 8.0 to the task bar in 8.1 that only takes you back to the interface that is a PITA. They did it thinking people were getting lost and had no easy way back to the start screen when the truth is people hated that start screen.
And shoehorning classic shell to the interface, although it is one solution, is a risk being a program you have to download and trust you got it from the right source and it won't harm your system in some weird way. I've had issues with it sporadically creating runaway processes that eat up processor cycles until killed.
Lastly, name one area where 8 is better than 7. Don't say tablet features because I had a tablet running 7 fine with all the touch features of 8 and then some including multi-finger gesture recognition and stylus recognition with automatic switching between the two.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.