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Microsoft Backports Start Menu To Windows RT

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-back dept.

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.

5 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. won't be the only 'features' to be backported.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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*.

  2. Good but... by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

    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.

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:Good but... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you want a Start button in Windows 8.1, install Classic Shell.

      Do some googling, and figure out how you too can make Windows 8.1 look pretty much like previous versions of Windows. It's not that tough, but it makes it infinitely better.

      On my desktop, I've disabled their store, their apps, the idiotic Metro screens, and what I see is a classic looking Windows desktop with a Start menu. Not a single bit of the crap Microsoft believes is the future. Because I want a damned desktop for working on, not some damned romper room thing which thinks the world is now a tablet.

      The problem is that Microsoft doesn't seem willing to acknowledge your right to say "I don't want your Windows 10 crap", and are making it damned near impossible to identify which updates are the crap adding telemetry and other shit intended to force Windows 10 on you.

      So much of their updates are sneaking in telemetry, user experience tracking, and other shit entirely designed to benefit Microsoft .. it actually takes a lot of effort to keep that shit away or have any trust that Microsoft isn't installing stuff you don't want, or a ticking time bomb which is going to give you Windows 10 no matter what you think.

      Disabling Windows updates entirely might be something I have to start considering.

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Re:Why even bother Microsoft? by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

    It's for embedded use. Sometimes having a longer lifetime than many other usages.

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    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  4. when did start menu become the "OS" ? by 4wdloop · · Score: 2

    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?

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    4wdloop