Microsoft's upper management behind decision to bring back start menu

Software & Apps
#1

I just posted the article Microsoft’s upper management behind decision to bring back start menu.

The expected return of the start menu in Windows Blue / Windows 8.1, appears to be a decision of Microsoft’s upper management.

Click to read the full article here: [http://www.myce.com/news/microsofts-upper-management-behind-decision-to-bring-back-start-menu-66916/](http://www.myce.com/news/microsofts-upper-management-behind-decision-to-bring-back-start-menu-66916/)

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#2

There seems to be some confusion on exactly what Microsoft will be bringing back with the 8.1 release. Some are saying that the option to boot to desktop and a start button are the only things to be put back in, and that the old style start menu will [B]not[/B] be returning. In that case, the Start button will simply kick you out of the desktop and into the new “Metro” interface.

#3

Balmer finally got around to trying WIndows 8 and said “Hey, where’s the freakin Start menu???” and the rest is history :slight_smile:

#4

IMO, Balmer has finally seen enough lagging sales numbers for laptops and desktops with W8 installed and been getting an earful from manufacturers/retail outlets about how awful people are reacting to the new OS. Then he read the terrible reviews on sites like Newegg and realized W8 is a marketing train wreck in the making. He should have seen all this coming BEFORE releasing it in the first place.

#5

“Users don’t use the start menu” - that’s because Vista and Win7 themes castrated most of the customization out of it.

“It’s true - I am indeed using a Less Useful service less and less often.”

Du-uh.

That said, I’ve seen code that makes it look like there’s no Start Menu folder-structure in Windows’ future.

I still say this is a schizophrenic UI. There are so many Start Screen demands to type names and words in (SEARCH for example) yet TOUCH is the predominant UI action.

They want to have thousands and thousands of Apps in the WinStore - and presumably bought and subscribed by millions of Start Screen users - but how cumbersome would it be to scroll thru hundreds of Start Screen icons to find The One You Need Now.

“Oh - just type it in.” Uh. With what? This is Touch-Centric.

#6

When I got my laptop which is running Windows 8, I decided not to install a 3rd party Start menu just so I would get familiar with working without so I’m prepared if need to help troubleshoot someone’s PC running Windows 8.

After using Windows 8 on my laptop for over a month, I have actually got accustomed to not having it, but not exactly how Microsoft would expect. I pinned all the main Applications I use to the taskbar (Firefox, Gimp, Word, etc.) and got in the habit of right-clicking the bottom left for everything else, e.g. control panel, computer management, admin cmd, etc. As for accessories, I use the Run method, i.e. bring up Run, type in notepad, calc, mspaint or what ever other accessory I want and it’s straight up.

As for the Metro Start UI, I’m actually not sure when was the last time I intentionally went into a Metro App. One problem I found with Windows 8 Apps is that they don’t work with my projector as it has an unsupported resolution, forcing me into desktop mode.

Then again, it would be nice to have the Start menu officially back.

#7

This pretty much confirms to me that the Windows development team is off somewhere in their own fantasy land, completely out of touch with what their customers want and how they use the OS (though I think that management’s decision to override the developers is a little like locking the barn door after the horses have already escaped).

#8

This is looking to be the classic case of MS’s upper management not minding the store.

#9

Any genius out there found a way to strip out DOS from Win8 so that we can just run it from a command line? That way we’re rid of the Graphic interface altogether.

#10

[QUOTE=olddancer;2685599]Any genius out there found a way to strip out DOS from Win8 so that we can just run it from a command line? That way we’re rid of the Graphic interface altogether.[/QUOTE]

You mean Linux?

I’ve been trying to get the hang of Linux through the Linux Mint 14 distro. I’ve been surprised at how fast it boots up and how responsive it is. It hasn’t been easy learning it, but I’d rather have a backup plan if Windows decides to keep down the app/tile path.

#11

^
+1 to what Yojimbo197 said. Recently, I got a broken laptop from my boss, with the decision that it wasn’t worth fixing, therefore “if I can fix it, I can have it”. I got it fixed only to find out that it was running Windows 7 Crippled… I mean Starter Edition. As it turns out, without the hardware acceleration that the Aero theme uses, it’s extremely difficult to get lag-free SD video playback. Seriously, what a joke!

So, I decided to take my first steps into the Linux side of life, and installed Ubuntu. I’ve since been surprised at how little RAM is used compared to Windows. Heck, using the SMPlayer frontend, I can play lag-free HD videos, perform some post processing, and still have plenty of CPU left over!

As of now, the Windows installation is now little more than an Ubuntu repair OS.

#12

Now if they’d just bring back the Windows 3.1 interface I could figure out how to use it. :wink:

#13

I’ll believe it when I see them put back the start menu and desktop.
It appears they aren’t in any hurry to “correct” it either.

Wonder if they got their info from teeny facebook participants:

“Microsoft explained away its removal using data it gathered from the company’s Customer Experience Improvement Program”

…wonder whether they know the damage they have done to the pc industry.

#14

I wonder why it never occurred to them to make Metro just an add-on. At the low Win8 price they could have sold it as Update to Win7 and wouldn’t have had to change / fake so much that the user thinks they created a new OS.

#15

Susi, yes, we’ve lived with dual-UI experiences in the past. Win3 pasted over DOS. The Classic vs. DuJour (Aero, not-Aero), etc. And Start Screen vs Desktop is more of that. If Microsoft would allow a Start Screen to acknowledge ALT-F4 as its shutdown keystroke combination (and all W8 fanbois claim to love those keystroke combos!), then even Shutdown could be considered “old hand” because that keystroke combo existed in Win95-98-NT-2000.

I too have eschewed all the “Make this Win7” add-on’s but I am very suspicious of the direction of Start Screen, Apps, Use Tracking and the Need To Subscribe To Everything.

I’d still like to chat with Microsoft’s own desktop-administrator groups that go around to their thousands of employees’ cubicles to solve “issues”, and see what they think. Typically, no one has more complaints about a vendor’s products than the vendor’s staff and biggest users - who know it all too well.

#16

[QUOTE=olyteddy;2685625]Now if they’d just bring back the Windows 3.1 interface I could figure out how to use it. ;)[/QUOTE]You’ll really hate this then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calmira

#17

I see Microsoft’s 12-year CFO announced his resignation. This recent quarter’s earnings were up, so his timing makes it appear he’ll leave on an upswing. Of course, he’s sticking around for an unknown amount of time. Something tells me the earnings plank he was walking will become publicly much, MUCH shorter by the time he’s out the door.

#18

Win8 is a bit different under the hood when compared to Win7.
Having said that, there was no need for MS to have removed the start menu on Win8, even if they were correct that ‘most folks were not using the start menu’, as it still means some folks were using the start menu.

Once you start forcing people to do it your way or no way, then you’re just asking for a rebellion.

Hopefully MS have learned a valuable lesson here.

#19

What is abundantly clear is that MS is a dysfunctional mess. The Apple fanboy sites love to point this out and want Balmer to stay on forever because he’s destroying the company.
I’ve read it too, MS’s internal teams don’t even respect each other. The Office team is out of sync with the O/S team and refuses to align with them because they don’t have faith in the O/S releases. Something like that.

For the first time ever I even considered buying a Mac recently. I came to and instead built a cutting edge Win 7 machine with the fastest SSD and it boots in seconds. Why should I have any interest in the mess that is Windows 8 ?

#20

The fact is that Windows 8 isn’t really a “mess”, IMO. There are some good improvements but they have been buried by the fuss over the exclusion of a Start Menu and booting to the Desktop. If these two things were included so I could run W8 in a similar manner as W7 then I would have no issues upgrading. MS has time to save W8 from the same fate Vista suffered but they have to do it with the 8.1 update.