Start Menu Could Return to Windows in Spring 2014

[qlum]

While windows is clearly an inferior os to the modern linux distro as a gamer I am still stuck with it and while I really use the start screen as a secondary method of launching programs after launchy I do believe that its much better then those full screen things they put into windows 8 as such I always install classic shell wherever I install windows 8 and really it works pretty well with that.

 

[The_Trutherizer]

Well tbh I had just about convinced myself that it is unnecessary some time before I upgraded to win8 a while back, but I miss it sooo much. I just wish there was a place where everything that used to go in the start menu could go that I can access with one left-click. I'm sick of pinning every little app I use more than 1 a month to my taskbar. It's a bit messy. And this talk of floating the modern apps... When using Win8 it does not actually take all that long to realise with a sinking feeling that tiles and full screen interfaces are not windows. Windows are little blocks off functionality floating around on your desktop. A little sad but true.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

Four things need to be implemented:

Chose your Experience:
Metro UI - Use this if you have a touch screen
Classic Windows - Includes the Start Button. For those using a keyboard/mouse.

Customize your Start Menu: Allows you to move icons, create folders and organize your Start Menu's All Programs menu with ease.

Right-Click on the Task bar to Show/Hide Quick Launch

If the user chooses the Classic Start Menu experience, get rid of all of those menus that appear on the side by swiping or moving your mouse on either side or top. I haven't used Windows 8, so I can't say for certain that I know such a feature does currently exist.

But hey, if they go as far as putting the Start Menu back the way it should be, I'll upgrade my computer and kiss Windows 7 goodbye.

 

[knowom]

"If you ain't got an SSD than it would explain why your PC is lagging.
Using a PC like yours without an SSD is like buying a Ferreri with a cube shaped concrete wheels."

Vista and later OS's lack 2D GDI acceleration support so the whole UI itself lags a bit by comparison. They also run substantially more processes in the background and use more system memory and storage.

 

[xaephod]

Oh please can developers make all their games run on openGL!? Please! I would never look at Windows again.

 

[jimmysmitty]

How about the bring back the unbloated OS? Notice how fast 95/98/XP are, and then you try out Vista or Win7, even on a multicore machine and it lags behind, not nearly as snappy.

Just spend time to give us a quick and unbloated operating system, with a classic interface. Even XP loaded with updates and patches is so much responsive than the newer versions of windoze.

Let have a smarter, quicker, classic OS, not a bloated, dumbed down, limited OS.

No thanks. I would rather have an OS that can utilize my quad core and 16GB of RAM, not a OS that was designed on archaic hardware.

And 8.1 loads faster on my current system than XP and is snappier. XP is old. It's been time to move on from that OS for years.

Four things need to be implemented:

Chose your Experience:
Metro UI - Use this if you have a touch screen
Classic Windows - Includes the Start Button. For those using a keyboard/mouse.

Customize your Start Menu: Allows you to move icons, create folders and organize your Start Menu's All Programs menu with ease.

Right-Click on the Task bar to Show/Hide Quick Launch

If the user chooses the Classic Start Menu experience, get rid of all of those menus that appear on the side by swiping or moving your mouse on either side or top. I haven't used Windows 8, so I can't say for certain that I know such a feature does currently exist.

But hey, if they go as far as putting the Start Menu back the way it should be, I'll upgrade my computer and kiss Windows 7 goodbye.

8.1 allows for you to tell it to boot right to desktop and change the Start Screen to show All Apps instead of the Metro style. You have always been able to add in the hid/show desktop you just need to enable it.

As well you can disable all of the hot corners as well.

"If you ain't got an SSD than it would explain why your PC is lagging.
Using a PC like yours without an SSD is like buying a Ferreri with a cube shaped concrete wheels."

Vista and later OS's lack 2D GDI acceleration support so the whole UI itself lags a bit by comparison. They also run substantially more processes in the background and use more system memory and storage.

Yes and now we have quad core CPUs being very standard, 4GB being the default memory amount and IGPs that can now play decent games on decent settings.

Of course its better to have a OS that cannot properly utilize any of that and rather a OS, like XP, that was designed when single cores was tops, 1GB of RAM was considered a ton and 64bit was just a wee infant.

Oh please can developers make all their games run on openGL!? Please! I would never look at Windows again.

The problem with OGL is there is no support backbone which means it may get new features or it may not.

It is sad but Microsoft actively supports and develops DirectX while OGL sometimes gets the support and sometimes does not. Add in the fact that the consoles are the ones that push games the most and the XB1 is DX based, its going to be a while before OGL takes over.

 

[spud]

The argument is moot as Windows 7 (Pro Ultimate) have XP mode in vT. As well the performance differences in Windows 7 vs Windows XP are situational at best. Frankly SSD native support trumps all claims that Windows XP has ground to stand on. As SSD's in my opinion are the biggest change to PC performance since the math co-processor.

 

[troutmask]

deadmeow's comments are amusing. The biggest complaint about XP for years was that it was bloated and slow on contemporary mainstream h/w. And it was. Anyone who actually lived through those years knew the drill: disable all of the animations, set the page file to a fixed size, disable 15 services, etc.

The other complaints were hauntingly familar: the UI is toylike and useless; the start menu is different/less efficient/I can't find anything; there are few apps written for XP, so why not stick with Win98?

In addition, the nvidia drivers were crap for months. And my mobo drivers kept crashing. In the end, I bought a new mobo so I could run XP. In fact, XP was the most troublesome OS I ever used. That includes WinME, Vista, and Win8, supposedly the biggest disasters of all time.

 

[JD88]

Microsoft just runs around in circles. They need new leadership and they need it badly.

No one here is arguing for a return to XP in the literal sense, they simply think Windows 8 is a bloated monstrosity. Linux supports multi-core CPUs and SSDs just fine yet requires far fewer resources and storage space than Win 8.

Microsoft's problem isn't user interface, it's business model. As free alternatives gain ground in terms of user base and functionality, the paid OS model is going to be defunct and Microsoft doesn't have anything else profitable to fall back on. They need fundamental change and they need it fast.

And the biggest problem with 8 was never really the start menu, it's the lack of flexibility that came along with it. No one wants to be told that they have to use a tablet interface and full screen apps on a 27" non-touch monitor. Microsoft's arrogance for thinking they can dictate what is best for everyone was a huge blunder.

 

[JackFrost860]

The 'Start Screen' of Windows 8 is the 'Start Menu' of Windows 7. It's not just a screen size menu. The real problem is that Metro Apps are horrid on the desktop. To fix this all Windows needs is the ability to run Metro apps in a windows like desktop apps.

 

[jacobdrj]

deadmeow's comments are amusing. The biggest complaint about XP for years was that it was bloated and slow on contemporary mainstream h/w. And it was. Anyone who actually lived through those years knew the drill: disable all of the animations, set the page file to a fixed size, disable 15 services, etc.

The other complaints were hauntingly familar: the UI is toylike and useless; the start menu is different/less efficient/I can't find anything; there are few apps written for XP, so why not stick with Win98?

In addition, the nvidia drivers were crap for months. And my mobo drivers kept crashing. In the end, I bought a new mobo so I could run XP. In fact, XP was the most troublesome OS I ever used. That includes WinME, Vista, and Win8, supposedly the biggest disasters of all time.

You speak truth. XP was a bloated OS. The red-headed-stepchild of Windows 2000, a clean OS that was had most of the benefits and none of the bloat of XP. XP was a worthless OS until the release of SP2, and wasn't a half decent OS until they fixed the bugs of SP3 (Early releases of SP3 were buggy, and could cause the system to go into an infinite boot loop if you had the wrong CPU).

Windows Vista was ALSO bloated for its time. No more so than XP was in its time. Microsoft expected that you had no less than the top tier hardware when you installed Vista, and most of the time, that assumption was absolutely wrong. With that said, Vista introduced a much improved security model (where XP didn't really have one), introduced a much much better driver model (for hardware that was supported anyways) and much improved system stability, provided you system was beefy enough to run Vista.

Once 7 was released, we saw the first Windows OS that actually addressed user problems and complaints. It had all of the benefits of Vista, more speed than XP (even on netbook-class hardware) and with very very very few exceptions generally improved the Windows GUI experience in every way.

Windows 8 still improved on speed on sub-par hardware. But they started to take a step back in other ways. The license model is a huge step back. Windows Vista and 7, you could use any installation disk, so long as you had a valid activation key, you were ok to go. However, this has been totally undermined in Windows 8, where you basically have no activation key (it is written to the CMOS on OEM computers). There are some odd choices as far as the disjointed desktop/metro areas. The UI, while not optimal for the desktop, is GREAT for tablets compared to any other Windows desktop OS. And Windows 8 has the BEST multimonitor support for the desktop so far. Windows 8 is a mixed bag, but in all, I will take the limitations and take the better OS under the hood...

 

[rantoc]

When poor sales strikes MS are forced to listen what the CUSTOMERS want rather than do what THEY want - That is the reason every other windows have poor sales and are garbage!

 

[eodeo]

I thought start was coming back with 8.1. I was really looking forward to that as I'm about to upgrade from core2 to i7. I think I'll just stick with win7 until 9.

Your loss MS.

 

[southernshark]

I cant wait for MS to just die...

Die and be replaced by a new software manufacturer called MicroMan.

MicroMan will produce a variety of software and hardware products which will revolutionize the way we use computers in a way that everyone will love.

MicroMan will be lead an AI being alien construct from the crab nebula. The company leader will of course be named MicroMan. MicroMan will have come to earth after being exiled from his home galaxy by a being known simply as Big Boss.

Everyone will love the software, and if they don't Microman will open an inter-dimensional portal into their living room and beat the crap out of them until they fork over another $100 dollars.

 

[canadianvice]

Just make it an option, like "Change or disable Windows Features". That'd be the perfect menu for it and then you could not worry about one or the other. I prefer the start menu. It's simply better. But for touch, perhaps the start screen would be more useful.

 

[CaedenV]

Here's hoping they do at least something like this! I love a lot of features about win8, and I like a lot of the ideas of Metro, but the whole 'full screen' experience on the desktop is dumb. Allow full screen as an option, allong with the whole snapping idea. But by default apps should run in a window on the desktop side of things.

Also, I absolutely hated the old start menu, and barely found the win7 menu to be useful. But to have a start screen a little bigger than my WP8 phone, with the same general organization features of my phone that pops up where the old start menu use to live would be a great compromise. Live tiles are a good idea. The relatively secure metro app environment and ecosystem is a good idea. The interplay that is possible (though rarely used) between metro apps is a good idea. But there is no need for these good ideas to run outside of the good idea of the desktop paradigm on machines that are capable of it.

I actively don't use metro apps that I like simply because there is no window option. I am not afraid to spend money on metro apps MS. But they are generally useless when they have to take up such a huge swath of the screen.

 

[giovanni86]

Until there is a official word that the start menu is back in its original form i'm still steering clear of windows 8. They should basically announce Win's 9 with SSD having native support.

 

[canadianvice]

Here's hoping they do at least something like this! I love a lot of features about win8, and I like a lot of the ideas of Metro, but the whole 'full screen' experience on the desktop is dumb. Allow full screen as an option, allong with the whole snapping idea. But by default apps should run in a window on the desktop side of things.

Also, I absolutely hated the old start menu, and barely found the win7 menu to be useful. But to have a start screen a little bigger than my WP8 phone, with the same general organization features of my phone that pops up where the old start menu use to live would be a great compromise. Live tiles are a good idea. The relatively secure metro app environment and ecosystem is a good idea. The interplay that is possible (though rarely used) between metro apps is a good idea. But there is no need for these good ideas to run outside of the good idea of the desktop paradigm on machines that are capable of it.

I actively don't use metro apps that I like simply because there is no window option. I am not afraid to spend money on metro apps MS. But they are generally useless when they have to take up such a huge swath of the screen.

Gotta say, I just fundamentally disagree with that. I hate metro apps with a passion. They should have something more like an Application store for Windows for easy, safe downloads. Metro is worthless on a desktop and I honestly have not had reason to open one of those applications once.

The Start Menu was also more useful - I could see what I had up and didn't have to go to a full screen, obstructive version of it to get the applications I needed open. Not to mention that I also can stick precisely what I want in the Start Menu manually.

It's just really, really simple: Give people the option of the two and uninstalling or removing the other. I just can't stand the Metro interface, because even if I get past the start screen, the fact I have all those useless apps taking up hard disk space drives me mad.

 

[canadianvice]

Here's hoping they do at least something like this! I love a lot of features about win8, and I like a lot of the ideas of Metro, but the whole 'full screen' experience on the desktop is dumb. Allow full screen as an option, allong with the whole snapping idea. But by default apps should run in a window on the desktop side of things.

Also, I absolutely hated the old start menu, and barely found the win7 menu to be useful. But to have a start screen a little bigger than my WP8 phone, with the same general organization features of my phone that pops up where the old start menu use to live would be a great compromise. Live tiles are a good idea. The relatively secure metro app environment and ecosystem is a good idea. The interplay that is possible (though rarely used) between metro apps is a good idea. But there is no need for these good ideas to run outside of the good idea of the desktop paradigm on machines that are capable of it.

I actively don't use metro apps that I like simply because there is no window option. I am not afraid to spend money on metro apps MS. But they are generally useless when they have to take up such a huge swath of the screen.

Gotta say, I just fundamentally disagree with that. I hate metro apps with a passion. They should have something more like an Application store for Windows for easy, safe downloads. Metro is worthless on a desktop and I honestly have not had reason to open one of those applications once.

The Start Menu was also more useful - I could see what I had up and didn't have to go to a full screen, obstructive version of it to get the applications I needed open. Not to mention that I also can stick precisely what I want in the Start Menu manually.

It's just really, really simple: Give people the option of the two and uninstalling or removing the other. I just can't stand the Metro interface, because even if I get past the start screen, the fact I have all those useless apps taking up hard disk space drives me mad.

 

[willythepooh]

While windows is clearly an inferior os to the modern linux distro as a gamer I am still stuck with it and while I really use the start screen as a secondary method of launching programs after launchy I do believe that its much better then those full screen things they put into windows 8 as such I always install classic shell wherever I install windows 8 and really it works pretty well with that.

 

[willythepooh]

While windows is clearly an inferior os to the modern linux distro as a gamer I am still stuck with it and while I really use the start screen as a secondary method of launching programs after launchy I do believe that its much better then those full screen things they put into windows 8 as such I always install classic shell wherever I install windows 8 and really it works pretty well with that.

 

[willythepooh]

You think start menu is better probably because you don't know how to organize the start screen. For me, I only put those I would most likely to use on the start screen, the rest are either left in "All Apps" screen or desktop. For those, I use often, I would made it medium size so that I could spot them right away. The others are all small size. Finally, I put them into 3 groups - Favorites, Productivity and Games.

 

[r3dl1n3]

After several years of using windows 8/8.1 that coupled with the fact that I have been a huge MS fanboy.. Even I have to admit that on the desktop the stat screen has been a huge mistake. All MS had to do was offer the option of installing it or keeping the start menu. Simple but they didn't (thanks Sinofsky I'm glad you are gone). Having said that.. I really look forward to the rumoured changes. The start screen is great if you are launching apps quick and they are actually there or if you've actual had the time to clean it up and organise it. organise it being the operative term.. no one can deny that without proper organising and spending time the start screen just start to look like a jumbled mess. then god forbid you have to actually open an icon that's not on the start screen.. you go to the all apps screen and what a disaster that is.. if you have a lot of applications installed it takes twice as long to find what you are looking for. E.G. wanted to find the rescue media build for acronis the other day.. this is an icon I would not have on my start screen or pinned to the taskbar.. it took way to long to actually find it and click it. Not to mention have you ever tried to ping something to the desktop... yeah I get it MS you don't want us to do that.. but sometimes we need that option.. and jumping through your hoops to do it.. well.. I really just want the choice myself... I have a surface RT, Dell Venue Pro 8, Acer W510 Hybrid and multiple desktops in my house. WIndows 8 start screen is great for everything but the desktop. although contrary to the guy in this thread saying windows 95, XP was faster (he's not very bright apparently) Windows 8 is by far their fastest least bloated OS.. Just sort out the start screen thing and your users will be happy.. personally if they merged the start screen with the desktop.. added back the start menu (or found a better way to organise the All Apps screen) I'd be a happy camper.
One last thing.. for all the people saying that the start screen is not good for the enterprise.. well I guess they've never actually worked in an enterprise.. Or at least they are not very good techs.. I find deploying Windows 8 in the enterprise to be exactly the market it is meant for.. I strip everything off.. add only the software load out for each department.. and boom.. they are done.. I can't tell you how many calls I had in the old days where someone wanted something and couldn't grasp the Click start, click all programs (or how many people ask me what's the start menu) But I digress.

 

[dimar]

Metro apps should have been the new gadgets from the beginning of win8. Start Menu should have been replaced with something better than unorganized metro start bullshit screen, something more logical and useful. Microsoft should stop copying everybody, and start innovating.

 

[jacobdrj]

@dimar

I agree. Gadgets were great in Windows Vista and better in Windows 7. But Microsoft did nothing with them. Everything I wanted Gadgets to be was incorporated into Android. Customers of mine have often lamented the fact that they wish their Windows desktops had the functionality of their smartphones, with plentiful inexpensive targeted apps that do exactly what you want them to that is less susceptible to malware (due to being in a central store). Windows 8 almost got it right, except that they shoved it down the throat of desktop users, and the live tiles are decidedly less functional than gadgets/widgets.