Windows 8.1 TV Ad Highlights Return of Start Button

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DiaSin

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They need to get it through their thick skulls, it is not the start BUTTON people want, it is the start MENU. Looks like the 5 bucks I spent on start8 will remain to be well worth it.
 

bejabbers

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The start button is only part of the problem.... The issue is the metro/tile/modern UI. Putting the start button back doesn't give back the start menu, which is what everyone wants.
 

lutel

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Microsoft plays silly games with its users, we want normal Start MENU to be back on desktop, somebody at Microsoft decided to step back 20 years in GUI development, I'm administrator of 300 workstation and I'll never replace Windows 7 before this issue is resolved, even with discounts on upgrades.
 

lutel

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Microsoft plays silly games with its users, we want normal Start MENU to be back on desktop, somebody at Microsoft decided to step back 20 years in GUI development, I'm administrator of 300 workstation and I'll never replace Windows 7 before this issue is resolved, even with discounts on upgrades.
 

Deadfred

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Microsoft needs to really listen carefully to its users. Windows 8 is an abortion of a UI because it offers little organization and zero intuitive navigation to the items we are looking for. We want our start menu back simply because it got us to where we needed to go quickly. A tile based approach is akin to throwing my shit all over the floor then hunting around whenever I need something. I know there are some people will want to point out the search mechanism, but to that I say, is this a GUI or a CLI operating system? Secondly, sometimes it is difficult to get a seach hit on items I know I have installed. Why should I have to try and remember or guess the name of what it is I'm looking for vs. going to the start menu location I know it will be in. Tiles are a really poor substitute to an organized start menu and this is why we want it back. MS, Please stick this implementation of the start button in the same place you keep clippy the office assistant.
 

ta152h

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Does it really matter much? Microsoft is losing market share every month. Chromebooks are popping up like crazy and are best sellers on Amazon. We're seeing SteamOS now making its appearance. Android for PCs is gaining more traction. Tablets are eating into PC sales more and more.

Microsoft doesn't matter. They made sure of that with Windows 8 by telling people what they wanted, and then with 8.1 by acting like people are so stupid they can't tell the difference between a start button, and the start button that opened the menu they want.

Result? Month after month Windows market share loses a tenth or two of market share, inexorably declining. It will keep accelerating, as once a competing platform reaches critical mass, it gets more support and software, gets better hardware and software, gets more mass, gets more support and software, etc...

There's no way for Microsoft to compete. You can't sell an OS for $100 when the competition is free. $100 is too much hardware, whether you want a faster processor, better mass storage, a nice screen, etc..., especially with the popularity of lower cost machines.

Microsoft has become irrelevant, and Windows is a dying platform. Better to review new Chromebooks, or Android based machines, as the free OS is the future, Microsoft is the past.
 

burkhartmj

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Of the top 20 on Amazon, 2 are chromebooks, two are macbooks and 16 are Windows based.While a single model of chromebook MIGHT be outselling any single model of Windows, Windows is still outselling Chrome OS by multiple orders of magnitude. The fact of the matter is chromebooks are too low power and nowhere near versatile enough, Android is a phone OS, and Linux has been free and marginalized for decades. Windows isn't going anywhere, and if people took 2 seconds to stop complaining or looking for workarounds and actually used Windows 8, they'd find it's nowhere near as bad as everyone suggests. The old start menu was limited and frustrating and offers zero organizational ability over Windows 8. It was a great interface when it came out 20 years ago, but it's dated and Windows needed to move on.

At this rate, I'm more likely to use startisgone when 8.1 hits than I EVER was to use startisback.
 

8350rocks

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Too little, too late...I was already running a dual boot with Ubuntu, now I find myself spending more and more time on Linux than Windows. When my family comes to me to upgrade their PC, instead of telling them I need $100 for a new version of windows on their PC, I will be telling them..."Look at this great *FREE* OS I found that works a lot like windows, and by the way, did I mention it's *FREE*?" They will be going to Ubuntu as well, once 13.10 goes live, I probably will only boot windows to occasionally play the 1 or 2 games that are a head-ache on WINE...as that's the only thing left I use Windows for...

M$ won't get any money from me for Winblows 8 or Winblows 8.1
 

back_by_demand

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Not to disagree with Diasin, but if you spent $5 on Start8 you were robbed, ClassicShell is free and great, plus it has integration with 8.1 so it doesn't interfere with the restored Start button
 

egmccann

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@Joshskorn -
The preview of 8.1 broke a lot of replacement start menu functionality. However, at the very least Stardock and Classic Shell have been updated (only two I tested) to work properly with the new not-really-a-button button.

And I have to agree with the other comments. Microsoft is not listening. The start *menu* functionality, among other things, is what is desired. (I'd like to see them not shove settings a desktop uses in the Metro "control panel," either - things like Windows Update are far less useful now to check and keep an eye on while running something else. No reason for it to take up 1/4 to the full screen in a non-minimizeable window.)
 

rwinches

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Win 8 is even worst on a mobile device a all those nifty tiles suck up your bandwidth.
Starting with 7 there is too much crap running in the background, like timmers keeping track of how long it takes to load something.
The security management is scattered all over and often has ambiguous names for functions.
Right now I have one pc that will load usb drivers for my Android devices the other comes up with an error, now I have most of the warnings turned off so I now have to remember or rediscover how I get around this.

Win 8 is a mess if you judge by the gigabytes of updates so far. I will not be upgrading to 8.1 anytime soon. I got lured by the $15 upgrade from 7 I wish I had not.
 

milktea

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The 'Start' menu is back but somewhat differently in Win8.1. But mostly importantly is the ability to boot to desktop. It is annoying to always boot to the Metro UI first then a second click to change to desktop in Win8.0.
 

mavikt

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What a debacle!
The start button is back, but not the menu. *facepalm*
So if you have a start menu app, this raises a new question: How do you disable/remove the MS start button in Win8.1 to remove clutter?
 

oxiide

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Haha, wow. Aggressively marketing a new product based on the return of a feature from an older, better-loved product is already shady corporate behavior, but to find out that its only cosmetic?! Microsoft really needs to learn a big, fat, market share-based lesson about customer goodwill.
 

DiaSin

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Most likely if it is from a major company, such as Stardock's Start8, they will update the software so that it automatically removes the MS button, or just re-route the MS button to the menu from the software.

 

dimar

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These Microsoft people are pure idiots! I use start button to see and organize my programs. I also use the search form to type few letter of the program name and quickly open it. I don't want the whole screen changed just to open another program...
 

grimtriad

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Go to a Windows 8 PC (as I suspect most of you don't have one) and right click in the bottom left corner (where the start menu used to be). If that isn't a better menu for you than then start button, then I'm confused what you used the start button for. I loved the old Win 95/98/2000 start menu and that has all of the reasons why. I hated the bloated crap that XP pawned off and avoided it until Vista.

Windows 8 is actually significantly better in this regard. If I want my programs I left click and get the ones I told it I care about most.

If I right click in the bottom left corner I have easy access to all of the power user features I need to keep my computer running smoothly.

Left click and type and it brings up the programs that match the search I entered just like XP and Vista and 7.

In windows 8.1 (available to MSDN users currently) you can even right click the Windows logo and the bottom left corner to get the admin menu.

Please find a new dead horse to beat and move on.

_WAter_
 
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