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.
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.
"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.
Windows XP (2001) - Good
And this is where all these "every other release" lists derail. Windows XP in 2001 was terrible. It wasn't until SP2 and arguable SP3 until it was usable. Prior to that it was a security nightmare. I mean, Slashdot at the time was ground zero for railing against XP and its "Fisherprice" interface. How do you people not remember this?
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.
Before people say I forgot the server stuff... They did a little better here:
Windows NT 3.5 - Crap
Windows NT 3.51 - Useable
Windows NT 4 -- Good
Windows 2000 --- crap
Windows 2003 --- Good
Windows 2008 -- Good (after R2)
Windows 2012 -- judgement still out
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
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.
Microsoft has lied about this in the past, why should anyone believe them now?
That's actually a good point. The start menu is easy to add -- third party developers have proven this. It's possible their strategy is to keep people using Windows 8 sans start menu, in the vain hope that M$ will fix it some day, and eventually just say to hell with it and use Win8 as it is now. And maybe that strategy will work.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Windows 2000 is crap? It's one of the golden releases, in my opinion the best one after 7.
And I can't do it without Classic Shell. Classic Shell, making Windows 8 Bearable.
Meet new people, and kill them.
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
> "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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
Wish I had mod points, I think this is the key:
I recently switched to Win 8, and the problem is not so much that it is worse that win7 but that it is different . I know how to do everything I want in win7, now I need to learn new ways to do the same things. Since I still need win 7 at work, I need to remember the old ones as well. This takes time and slows down my work. In return for that time I get.....well pretty much nothing. I haven't found any way in which the win8 interface is better than win7, its just different.
For the folks that say I should "learn new things" - I'm happy to learn new INTERESTING things, but figuring out where in various menus and "charms" Microsoft has hidden functionality is just not interesting, it is a pure waste of time.
Oh, and win 8 is really ugly with no aero - feels like windowing from 10 years ago. Doesn't hurt productivity, but it is UGLY.