Windows 10: Charms Bar Removed, No Start Screen For Desktops

jones_supa writes Late last week, Microsoft pushed out a new build (9926) of Windows 10 to those of you who are running the Technical Preview. The latest version comes with many new features, some easily accessible, others bubbling under, but two big changes are now certain: the Charms bar is dead, and Start Screen for large devices is no more. Replacing the Charms bar is the Action Center, which has many of the same shortcuts as the Charms bar, but also has a plethora of other information too. Notifications are now bundled into the Action Center and the shortcuts to individual settings are still easily accessible from this window. The Start Screen is no longer present for desktop users, the options for opening it are gone. Continuum is the future, and it has taken over what the Start Screen initiated with Windows 8.

Comments

Re:Screenshots

[ArmoredDragon]

It's not much to look at, sadly, as the new build brings the start menu more in-lines with Windows 8. Also sadly, along with this change they require you to use Cortana in lieu of the normal start menu search. They replaced the regular WPF start menu with a XAML (metro app) start menu that depends on a bunch of metro stuff to work, and removing Cortana breaks it. There's a hidden registry setting to go back to the one found in previous builds, but I suspect Microsoft will remove it like they did the start menu from Windows 8.

Meanwhile I've found that you can presently "de-metro"ify this build with these three powershell commands:

Set-ItemProperty HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced -Name "EnableXamlStartMenu" -Value 0 -Type DWord
Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online
Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackage
logoff # logs you off so you can log back in to see the effect

(The first two lines are actually one line; should be 4 lines total)

After you do that, it very much resembles the Windows 7 start menu. But again, I am doubtful that Microsoft will leave all of this intact for the final release, much as they did with Windows 8. One can only hope, or perhaps fill it in as a big petition in the feedback app (the code above removes that app, so keep that in mind.)

http://i.imgur.com/880f17Q.png

Re:Terrible names

[PRMan]

Well, then you'll be very happy. Because after upgrading my Windows 7 laptop to Windows 10, all I noticed is that it's faster and the battery lasts longer and it's harder for stupid people to run untrusted stuff from the internet. Other than that, it's pretty similar.