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."
to "latest and greatest" version of Windows in 2014 either.
MS may as well start selling retail copies of Win 7 again
Why would anyone want to start anything on Windows 8?
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.
I installed Windows 7.
Microsoft has lied about this in the past, why should anyone believe them now?
MS is apparently buying into the whole "every other release is good" thing too. They sure seem to be in a hurry to iterate the version number.
Coca-Cola paved the way. Redmond 'Nailed It'!!!
I received a windows 8 machine at work to fix some compatibility issues with my product. I bitched and moaned about how awful it was for a month. Then i let out a stream of periodic muffled profanities every time some weird unrequested interface took over my laptop from out of nowhere. Then months went by and i realized something:
Windows 8 is not really that bad. I know how to find all the stuffs now. I know how to shut it down. I know how to avoid having intrusive metro apps popping up. I no longer care if the start menu comes back or not. It's all still there. It actually seems to perform quite well. start up and shutdown times are decent. sleep when i close the lid seems to work. I'm through bitching and i just want to get on with my work. At this point, i'd rather it just stay the way it is.
HP and Dell announce revised Q4 revenue projections.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Microsoft will not have a new desktop-appropriate operating system until 2015." Fixed that for you.
I'm not sure why they're doing this -- third party developers have proven it's easy to do.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The Start Menu in 8.1 is crap. Most of the features that were in Win7's start menu don't exist in 8.1. Typical Microsoft, screwed up their "second" OS release:
Windows 3.1x (1992) - Good
Windows 95 (1995) - Mixed bag, at the beginning it sucked
Windows 98 (1998) - Good
Windows ME (2000) - Sucked (hard)
Windows XP (2001) - Good
Windows Vista (2006) - Sucked although not as hard as ME
Windows 7 (2009) - Good
Windows 8.x 2013 - FAIL
Windows 9 - ???
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
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.
Start Menu. A button is just a fucking button and only necessary to show you where to click. That's how the majority of 8's blatant mistakes with all the hold mouse here, charms bar, and other nonsense.
Who needs the most used button anyways?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.
I bet you have a good discussion on "their".
DownMod Parent SPAM
And I can't do it without Classic Shell. Classic Shell, making Windows 8 Bearable.
Meet new people, and kill them.
Microsoft needs to listen to their customers and bring back the start menu that was removed in Windows 8's beta period.
What bothers me is that they extensively gathered user feedback during the two free-to-test Windows 8 preview versions and they still stubbornly went with the clunky Start Screen. I guess the pressure to reinvent things to have something new to sell was so high.
What a great way to make sure Windows 9 sells like hotcakes!
1. Remove a well-loved feature from a system with sufficient vendor-lock in.
2. Only provide the feature in a paid upgrade
3. Profit!
Is this a patentable business model?
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
First you have to dry and age it for a long time.
And people actually pay good money for this. Unfortunately if I want a new laptop, I too have to pay for it, even though the first thing I'll do is get rid of it and install Linux.
Also, only the even Star Trek is good. Fuck it, this analogy is collapsing faster than a... something something.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
One of the chief reasons that Windows 2000 never took off as a consumer OS was because of the lack of drivers. It was a pretty decent OS, but if you were using it as a home OS you really had to pay attention to the HCLs. Once XP took off in a big way, I could use XP drivers in a lot of cases, but after XP SP2 I saw on reason on a home or office computer to run Windows 2000. I was still running it as a server OS up until around 2009 or so.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
>, Apple runs the apps I need. (If Linux did, I'd use that instead, but they don't yet.)
I used Linux exclusively for many years. I was pleasantly surprised how natural OSX felt when I started using it. I knew that OSX is certified Unix, but I expected it to feel at least as different as FreeBSD. I certainly recommend OSX (not iOS) for people who like Linux.
Of course there's competition for desktop and laptop PCs that ship with Windows. Microsoft could be losing desktop PC market share to consoles for gaming and Macs for everything else. Or Microsoft could be losing laptop market share to MacBooks, Chromebooks, and tablets running a smartphone-derived operating system.
Me: No more Windows on my PC until.... forever.
Linux... I heart you.
> "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."
Apparently this needs to be pointed out yet again: A button that takes you to the start screen is not a start button. What users requested was the start menu back. What was delivered was at best a condescending "we know what you really want better than you", and more like a calculated insult.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
But we have invested years learning those habits. Productivity kicks in when the tool becomes a reflex. Reflexes are not a bad thing: they speed us up because we don't have stop and think.
I have nothing against the octopus body design, but there is a big learning curve for a brain used to a human body to suddenly be shoved into an octopus body.
Unless the "new thing" offers about a 20% productivity improvement, it's generally best to stick with the existing interface because the learning curve will eat up that 20% for a few years. In biz investment terms, the ROI is too far out. Why can't MS just give us both interface choices as a user setting?
Change for changes' sake is a productivity drain. (There is a reason I kick kids off my lawn :-)
Table-ized A.I.
Windows 8.x is pretty good only as long as you have a touchscreen.
What is really atrociously stupid is Microsoft's idea of putting the Metro interface onto Windows 2012 Server. It is just breathtakingly stupid to put an animated, graphical user interface onto a system that is almost always accessed via Remote Desktop Connection.
Kriston
I partly agree. Windows 8.1 isn't as tragic as it seems at first. But they've forgotten one of the primary goals of a UI: discoverability.
I'm a Linux geek, so I'm used to typing arcane commands into shell prompts. I can find whatever I need in a Google search if I don't know it already. Command line interfaces require you to specify what you are looking for. It's expected that you should know in advance what you want and how to ask for it. This is somewhat less true for the double-tab interface in bash, but still, the basic idea is to specify.
What made Windows and MacOS such a big deal back in the day is that they were "discoverable" - you could figure out what options you had available by reading the menus and picking one, with the basic expectation that, if there was an option or command to run, there'd be a menu entry in a hopefully sensible place to allow it. Thus, anybody could "use" a computer by finding the obvious start button.
Windows 8.x tosses discoverability to the wind. You just have to know in advance which combination of swipes and from which side in order to get what you want. Because of this, it's not discoverable. What makes Windows 8 so damning and frustrating for the new user is that stuff happens and there's no obvious reason why.
With this recent statement, Microsoft has made clear that they're going to try to double down on the Metro Interface, and hope that by promising it at some distant, future date, the haters will shut up long enough for people to get used to the not-discoverable Windows 8 interface.
I have mixed feelings about this.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Microsoft had an epiphany. That epiphany was called iTunes and later spun off as the App Store. You see Apple gets a cut of EVERY APP SOLD via their marketplace and I believe they might even share in revenue from ads in ad supported apps as well. Since it is impossible to sideload apps without jailbreaking an iOS device they have ISV's over a barrel if they want to sell to Apple's customers. Microsoft decided they liked Steve Job's decidedly Gatesesque business model. They knew their mobile devices would be a hard sell given the saturation of iOS/Android so they decided they could back door their model into their desktop OS. It has been a multi-tiered approach but non of their vectors has gotten much traction. Surface RT was DOA and Surface Pro and desktop users continue to use traditional Windows apps. If Microsoft brings the start menu back it would delay even further Metro App adoption and Microsoft's newest revenue stream. So they will continue to promise to bring it back so people won't just throw Windows 7 on their new PC but keep delaying it as long as they can in hopes Metro App use continues to climb.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Right now windows 8 has a bad rap and they have made some miss steps.
Windows 9 seems better then windows 8.2 / 8.1 U2.
Windows 7 came out when they could of had windows visa R2 / Windows visa SE.
What do start-up speeds, pinning apps, 3 monitors, resume from sleep, etc. have to do with a fucking start menu? Nothing.
P.S. My start menu setup - no program is more than 4 keypresses away. Windows-key to open the menu. P for programs. I for Internet. M for Mozilla. F for Firefox. My productivity is not improved ONE BIT by having narrow-down search (have it on my email client, it's great, on my start menu, no?)
Newbies don't get the tiles any quicker than anyone else. In fact, if you don't see that Metro is Active Desktop from '95 brought back from the dead, it makes me think you weren't around then. We did this 20 years ago. We rejected it 20 years ago in favour of a more obvious system than hiding all my icons and letting me hunt for them by knowing their name.
The Metro interface may work for you, it doesn't work for everyone. That's not hard to understand. I can't work on multi-monitor setups, it pisses me off - and yes, I program. I couldn't do it since the days of the monochrome debug monitor you could attach back when that was LUDICROUSLY expensive and stderr actually meant something.
FORCING someone, anyone, into a pattern of working is not good. And sure it's the people most used to their working pattern that are rebelling. The people who have honed their computing environment over decades. Why piss them off, at the expense of a single Boolean option? Seriously? What's the point?
Fact is, I use Windows 8 without all that crap. I deploy Windows 8 without all that crap. It's STUPENDOUSLY fast, even on built-in drivers (one of the best features of 8, in my opinion, is the ability to deploy a single, driverless image to basically ANYTHING and have it pick up enough default drivers to be usable immediately - I have deployed two complete networks with it, without the only single specific driver I've ever had to install on top being a high-security smartcard interface for banking purposes). And, guess what, my users ask for the start menu. I give it to them. I give them Classic Shell so - if they want - they can get back to Metro in one Boolean option. Or holding Shift when pressing the Windows key (or vice-versa, if they want).
Fact is, it's not about what YOU think is best for everyone. One size does not fit all. Windows 8 blew my mind at first (Touch interface, right? Deployed it on a touchscreen PC without a mouse. Accidentally opened IE in Metro. Took me and my boss 10 minutes of pissing about and then a Google to figure out the gesture to close the fucker - swipe down from top). Windows 8 blows newbies minds, even though that haven't used a PC before (which is fast approaching zero, if not there already now).
Nobody gives a shit about Metro not because nobody uses it, but because we're FORCED into it. For no good reason. I'll beat any metric you like on a system that I'm used to and I've set up, compared to the default out-of-the-box Metro shit. And every second I spend training for it or fighting against it, is a second I could spend doing some actual work. So I don't piss about. I install ClassicShell, wherever I go, I deploy ClassicShell for hundreds of users - and I've yet to have one say "Give me Metro back" (and if they did, I literally can say to them "There's the option, just switch it off or customise as you see fit" without them affecting ANYONE else).
Fuck off imposing your workflow on others.
There's nothing great about the 'start' button. When it first appeared in Windows 95, no one jumped up and down and shouted 'eureka!' It was just a way of providing users with a reference point for key functionality...starting apps, shutting down, seeing a short semi-custom menu of options, finding system stuff, and so on. I use a non-window os and there is no 'start' button and there never has been one...and no one misses it. Windows 3.1 and NT 3.1 did not have a 'start' button. The 'start' button is even a semi-retarded non-intuitive way of centralizing stuff. For example, as has often been pointed out over the years, clicking on 'start' to shutdown is not exactly the cleverest way of doing things. (My system has a button cleverly labelled 'shutdown.') But...but...but...the 'start' button was missed for just one reason...because windows users are used to it. So, when Microsoft takes it away and does not replace it with anything comparable, users complain. We would happily click on 'kill' or 'terminate' or 'stop' or 'don't do that anymore' or a frowny-face or whatever, as long as it was...the same. Putting the 'start' button back...in 2015...kind of misses this point. By that time, we users will be used to something else.
and not the more walled garden like apple one. At least Google let's have easy side loading / alt app store with less sand boxing then apple.
at least MS store has more flex to it then apple does.
Microsoft has been on a long-term trend in the name of ease of use of burying everything behind complicated and convoluted UIs since at least Vista, although the default XP UI was also in on it a little.
Little things, like changing your computer's IP address seem to require more and more clicks, dialog boxes and window changes to accomplish the same tasks as before. More and more settings seem to default to "idiot light' mode where basic information is deliberately turned off or hidden.
This might be tolerable for a "home" edition of something designed to get grandma on the internet with a minimum of long distance phone calls to her grandkids, but it's absolutely maddening for "professional" editions and simply uncalled for in "server" editions.
I just cannot fathom what group or individual decided that Server 2012 needed the same UI as the most basic desktop OS. I don't mind the concept of Metro and the execution seems OK on a Surface Pro provided you stay in Metro mode, but there should be a switch or something that just completely disabled Metro mode for server OSes (and should be the default) and it should be switchable for desktop OSes.
Further, the desktop UI needs an "expert" mode where some of the "wizards" are disabled (can't I just have my network connections without the network and sharing center) and more details and technical information are presented to the end users without being filtered/turned off.
My button lies under the metro
My button lies under the C (code)
My button lies under the metro
Oh, Bing back my start-button to me...
Bing back, Bing back
Bing back my button to me, to me
Bing back, Bing back
Bing back my start-button to me!
Table-ized A.I.
Long version: see pwnies' (IU designer at MS) posts at reddit, like this one: http://www.reddit.com/r/techno...
Metro has 2 UIs: Metro for casual use; classic for power users / production. MS wasn't particularly clear on the split and made it seem like Metro was the only UI going forward with classic atrophying in the background. That, apparently, is not the case. But MS pulled a boner here and mis-sold the UI.
It was always easy enough to restore the old school start button with either Start8 or a handful of free utilities. But ... you had to go and find them. MS was hoping that was just enough hassle that casual users would stick with Metro. So ... casual users get a UI optimized for touch and keyboard (alt-f4 to close windows; alt-tab to switch; win-w to search settings; win-s for searching docs / the web / whatever; type to find apps). Further, the included apps tend to be basic ("dumbed down") so that your grandpa can figure them out. Metro is also optimized around the idea of single-and double-tasking (i.e., media consumption). Metro isn't made for your typical /. user.
Classic is for people with multiple windows open, Office users, and so on -- those who can find OS settings and utilities (I think MS' definition of power user might have been overly generous).
Metro is really, really good for what it is. Once you grok the keyboard shortcuts or the gestures (swipe from the sides to make stuff happen), it's actually pretty cool.
What MS screwed up is not the UIs, but, rather, how they interact with each other. With release-era 8, if you opened, say, the picture viewer from classic, it punted you into full-screen Metro. Ditto for the calculator (true story, needed to check some math for an email, opened the calculator, and was presented with a full screen, 22" four function calculator -- that's just stupid). Some settings are accessible only through Metro (again, that's stupid -- hiding settings casual users shouldn't need to touch in Metro was bad design). Some default associations, like those for RAW photos, can only be set through Explorer if you want to use the classic app -- the Set Associations app only shows the Metro viewer as being available for those types. And so on. And forth.
As for the Start menu? It's easy enough to get back ... but I'm torn. I don't honestly use it all that often since I read about hitting the win key then typing the name of what I wanted. It's ... different than using the mouse. But, most of the time, it's also faster than going through nested menus.
Win8 is flawed. And weird. And occasionally antagonistic. And the dual UI aspect was very, very poorly handled. But its bones are good (fast, stable, secure). I like Win8, but it seemed to take longer to properly set up my desktop than it should've (Modern Mix also helps to control full-screen app pop-ups by running Metro apps windowed).
Which validates the belief that the even version numbers (Vista, Win8) are crap and the odd version numbers (XP, Win7) are better.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
This proves Windows 9 will have no likeable features - so they're 'saving' the start button for Windows 9 to balance the scales. Or at least, that's what a hater would say :-)
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Any word yet on Clippy?
Should soon start work for that LA basketball team Balmer purchased.
"Is that a three-pointer you're attempting? Can I . . ."
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
They should have a bigger mini with desktop cpu and maybe some kind of add in video card choice.
The MAC PRO is nice but it is overkill for lot's of uses and the base system only comes with 256 GB storage.
Why not have an mini mac pro at say $1,200-$1,500? with an I5 - I7 desktop cpu and 1 good mid range to high end video card?
The imacs are ok but the AIO / thin part holds them back a bit and there video chips are a little under powered (even more with the screen size on them) the top of the line Imac does have an GeForce GTX 780M addon but at the price for that system you can get a better PC for about $800-$1000 less. Even if you buy a screen for $300-$400 it's still $400-$600 less for an system with more ram, better cpu, better video card, and bigger HDD and or SSD.
Windows 8 with Classic Shell is just as usable as Windows 7. Windows 8 without Classic Shell has a terrible interface for grouping the programs you have installed. If Microsoft had issued Windows 8 with the equivalent of the Classic Shell start button, then acceptance of Windows 8 would have been a no-brainer, and all the complaints about it would have been almost non-existent. Windows 8.1 was the right place to recover from the mistake, but instead they just gave a *different* button in place of the start button that essentially did nothing useful. Don't be afraid to use Windows 8, but get Classic Shell to go with it. It's free.
We JUST got off XP - more or less, still a few stragglers out there. Anyone who gets a machine this year won't be capitalized until the end of 2017 so we won't worry about Microsoft until then. And by then I'm sure the executive will have invested a billion dollars and a billion meetings in finally coming to agreement on the makeup of a usable Linux desktop by then.
. . . welcome our new butt-plug overlords!
Win8 doesn't have two uis, it only has 1 and a quarter.
Yeah, it can sort-of mimic the start button, but without menus (okay 8.1 sort of gave some of that back), but they left everything else with the ex-lax induced shit-storm of an interface that should only have been seen back on an 8086 cpu where you wanted full screen, 2 color interfaces.
It's garbage pure and simple.
You want a tablet interface, use Android. Want a desktop, then use a real desktop interface, not some dumbed down piece of shit interface destined for retirement 6 months before it's released.
... "oh look, Apple is making a shitload of Money from their app store. Google is also making a shitload of money from their app store. Let's make an app platform, and very strongly encourage as many people as possible to use it by making it a primary interface on the new version of Windows, giving as few concessions to naysayers as possible. We'll make $$$!"
Mine handles hooking up to a projector just fine, but I've used Windows laptops that took some amazing voodoo to do the same
Screenshot...no argument, I love Win7's Snipping Tool
Home and End key, well, I like the Macbook keyboard, and there's only so much real estate to work with, so some keys had to go. I'd rather have key combos than smaller keys.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
...counterintuitive"
That doesn't make sense. So I believe it.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Windows has jumped the shark. It's all downhill from here.
Many folks have finally tired of Microsoft just churning the interface just to make a new product. All that did was alienate the users that had grown accustomed to menu interfaces in Office and the Start menu. Paying to buy a whole new version of the OS and then dealing with the headaches of just trying to figure out how to just get back to the capability the user had before the change got really old.
The problems with Windows 8 are not necessarily with the features. Windows 8 may be the best OS under the sun, but most users won't ever know that because it is buried under one of the most craptastic PC user interfaces contrived. Folks probably would be happy to have the core features of Windows 8 if the menus and buttons looked familiar to the last version. They do not.
I finally went to Linux simply because they kept a lot of the UI features like menus and start buttons that Windows abandoned. Linux really is now at a point where it is an easier OS to transition to from Windows XP and 7 vs transitioning to Windows 8. That is not because Linux interfaces improved dramatically (though they are better than they were) but because Windows 8 broke a lot of UI features that the users really liked and wanted.
Happy trails Microsoft, best wishes from a formerly happy customer from the Windows 3.1 days. Friendly advice - stop pissing off your loyal customers and give them what they want to see.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Deflector dish emitting a tachyon beam? Phasers pointed at dilithium crystals? The Klingon empire? WHAT MAN WHAT?!?
While Microsoft will not bring back the Start menu anytime soon, they promise to keep or increase the amount of pure Suck in Windows 8.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You could always buy a Mac or a System76 or something instead.
You forgot *servers*. Yes, the Metro tile GUI is also the GUI chosen for *servers*. CRAZY.
1. Fix start menu
2. Fix ribbon toolbar
What idiot did decide on these gui changes?
1. The ribbon gui in msoffice drove many people to switch to LibreOffice.
2. The missing start menu drove many people to switch to Linux.
3. The destruction of win32 (a good API in it's time) drove many developers to switch to Linux/posix.
What's next? This is an epic fail.
+1
I think it's more like people don't want to go to a third party to fix a product that should never have changed and require the fix in the first place. Especially after they paid cash for the new shiny car that has tile shaped wheels.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
I'm only half joking when i say MS should buy Start8 and offer it as a free download.
I'll remember you the Windows 98 SE experience (and XP if it weren't dragged down by crap). Boot crazy fast from the 7200 rpm HDD, pin programs to the Quicklaunch (such as fucking Winamp). Using three monitors, hell yes that was supported with different res and refresh (but hooking three CRT was a bit pointless besides testing it)
Launch any program in the start menu in two clicks. Because as you should know, a proper start menu opens the sub menus by hovering with the mouse. It was very keyboard navigable and you could add shortcuts and folders (i.e. your own sub menus) on the top. Also don't forget to sort by name and delete the useless stuff, you don't HAVE to keep windows movie maker, IE and other crap in here.
Suspend-to-RAM existed before Vista or 8, if you wonder.
What you meant to say in a single sentence , is that you get used to the taste of a shit sandwich after a while, to be blunt. That's all nice of you, but some of us simply refuse to start eating that fare to begin with.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
this analogy is collapsing faster than a... something something.
... glass house in a blender?
... poodle under an elephant's foot?
... signal in a Nine Inch Nails concert?
Do I win?
That is all.
2015 will be the year of Windows on the desktop!
I use it at home and work, and there is fundamentally no need for the start menu.
Of all the software that's installed on my computer, I just press the Windows key, and start typing the application name. Press enter.
It's all most people need.
As a regular user of the computer, I know what software is installed, and what I want to use. And I just start typing it away. There's no need to have a start menu so that you can browse installed software in the majority of the cases.
And, the main metro start screen (windows key landing page) is the "Pinned to start menu" where I just put all the applications I regularly use, in case I don't feel like typing 2 or 3 letters to bring it up. (And for other people using the computer as a guest). And I have Firefox and Twittr client pinned to my task bar.
I -can not- think of a single use case where I would -want- the start menu back.
All of the above.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
my downmod is ridiculous and unreasonable...
i'm asking for help here...anyone agree?
Thank you Dave Raggett
You can bet that Microsoft's big high dollar clients loved it. They don't give a rats ass about individual consumers, as they account for a tiny fraction of sales.
Murphy was an optimist
It would have been nice to have an offical start menu back into Windows 8. Although I find myself hating windows 8.1 a lot less as I got forced to using it for college, even if I really only use it to get into a virtual box to get into Linux :P) Still it sucks as I found myself using the pin the the start menu a lot more to access programs tfor everyday use and so no start menu no way to get that in 8.1
Now that Microsoft has coerced the majority of keyboard manufacturers to include a button just for Microsoft Windows, they decide to deprecate the feature leaving the distribution channels full of keyboards that have a useless button. I suppose about the time the channels clear of the startbutton'd keyboards, Microsoft will put the feature back in and the manufacturers will be sitting on a ton of keyboards without the revived button. It is clear that modifying the keyboard design of the qwerty keyboard to support a single sourced proprietary operating system was a decision that seemed ok at the time, but now is nothing but trouble. As if supporting nationalized keyboards is not troublesome enough, we now have the permutation with and without the start button.
Win 7 running under Citrix. Everyone gets a VDI! All 5000-9000+ of us and they wonder why it's a POS. Even though it's running on a perfectly good PC to begin with. Nope, gotta centralize and use 2X (at least) the licenses. Slow I/O? Well, buy more servers to slow it down even more!
Funny... but I know where this is the case and it's far from funny.
I think this would be the main feature of Windoze 9.
"Hey, we've re-invented the start menu!"
Beware! much sarcasm is added in this post!