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Microsoft Backports Start Menu To Windows RT
jones_supa writes: Windows RT devices, such as the Surface RT and the Surface 2, won't get an upgrade to Windows 10, but instead Microsoft has been working on a platform update that brings the original Start Menu which the company introduced in the first Windows 10 builds. This means that it is technologically based on DirectUI, instead of an XAML-based menu which shipped with the RTM PC version of Windows 10. Aside from the Start Menu, the update is expected to include some minor tweaks and performance improvements as well.
The RT Windows was dreadfully inadequate for Windows users that have always been able to run any Windows software on it. I am not even sure why Microsoft is even bothering upgrading the RT platform? The only software that runs is Office and then you rely on apps? Will it even support universal apps well?
This reminds me of what Microsoft did with some 7.5 Windows phones. Instead of giving them 8.0 OS they did 7.8 a minor refresh that did nothing. I had a Surface RT a while back it sat idle for months never even being turned on to update. I finally unloaded it on a trade to get a few bucks. Its a disaster and Microsoft should just retire it and put it out of its misery.
Nice as the Surfaces may be, I won't touch any Microsoft products for the next few years. Wiped Skype from my Linux and mobile devices too. Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback, Microsoft.
Ah Microsoft... Controllers of the biggest active botnet on the planet. Capturing your keystrokes, mouse movements, online activity and file content from your local devices 24/7.
All to give you a "better user experience".
all those spying / telemetry updates will make it to rt, too, and won't be properly described there either. hey microsoft: 'fixes issues in windows' is NOT what the telemetry updates, or gwx nagware for 7/8 for that matter, does. those updates cause MORE problems and fixes *none*.
The real question is would they make this available to regular 8.1 users who aren't entirely comfortable about jumping to Windows 10 right now?
Windows RT was only available for tablets, and (hacks combined with custom compiled executables aside - there really aren't many ARM Windows executables) only capable of running Microsoft Office on the "desktop" side. So this new Start button is of questionable usefulness, it's something the vast majority of RT users will never see.
Regular X86/X86-64 Windows 8.1, on the other hand, would greatly benefit from a Start button.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
At least Microsoft is trying, however minimally, to improve the user experience. I hate to admit it, but that's more than can be said for open source projects like Firefox and GNOME 3, which also trashed their UIs during the same era, yet haven't made any substantial effort to fix them. Firefox is still sporting the half-assed Chrome-imitating Australis look and feel, which is far inferior to what Firefox used before then, which itself was far inferior to the earlier Firefox 3.6 look. GNOME 3 is still a half-assed imitation of OS X, but it doesn't even do that well. I could forgive them if we saw even some sort of a minor improvement, but we just haven't seen even that from them. Microsoft has at least done something.
Microsoft is a tad late with their Windows version for the IBM 6150 RT...
The current Start Menu is horribly broken. Microsoft has known this for months, but has failed to produce a fix.
Currently, it is limited to 512 items. This also breaks Cortana's search for items in the menu.
Of course, that is separate from another issue with the Start Menu: The inexplicable "flattening" of the program files structure to a single folder level, which maddeningly produces menu folders with countless "Uninstall" and "Help" links in some cases. That was, apparently, a "design decision" by some idiot at Microsoft when they moved to the Metro UI in Windows 8, and hasn't been corrected back to the more realistic and productive way it originally worked (since Windows 95, no less)
I sure hope I get the spying features for free, too. Just kidding, I probably already have them. It's a good thing my Windows RT device is only used in the kitchen for recipes and streaming media.
It's (sadly) funny that the OS feature most taunted in second decade of 21th century is...GUI widget, even if it's an "app launcher" (gui shell, aka. desktop). Notably, "launchers" can be changed in android without sweat. Why not in Windows?
4wdloop
But they determined via customer mouse tracking and research interviews with morons that "nobody" uses the start menu. So why include is in 8 now? OH WAIT does that mean they're finally admitting that they're wrong and hopefully firing their entire research and development department? I doubt it, considering Bing is now hard wired into my Win10 start menu.
I saw a home icon on one of our Windows 8 machines this morning and I went ahead and dismissed it because we already spent the money on Start8.
Hey, Microsoft, since you fucked up thinking we didn't need a Start Menu, why did you compound the fuckup by trying backdoor installs to fix it when I'VE ALREADY WORKED AROUND YOU AND DON'T WANT YOUR SOLUTIONS AFTER I'VE ALREADY WORKED AROUND YOU BECAUSE THAT ONLY CONFUSES THE SHIT OUT OF THE USERS I HAVE TO SUPPORT.
BTW, Your Windows 10 Menu Starty Menu Sucks Balls as well because our company might want our employees to work and not be distracted by all your social bullshit.
"Microsoft has been working on a platform update that brings the original Start Menu"
...
Don't mean a thing to me as I am on Lubuntu, been Microsoft free for years, at least at home