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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."
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.
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.
It's not at all bad once you install Classic Shell and disable Metro. It's still totally insane that we need to install a 3rd party tool to make the OS usable, but 8 is far superior to 7 once you install Classic Shell.