[Mongoose]

It took them many months of user uproar, but behold, the Start Menu is back in Windows 8.1.  That might finally be enough for me to even remotely consider it.

[Nuke]

about ****ing time. i might actually try win8 now (on an old machine that i never use).

[deathspeed]

about ****ing time. i might actually try win8 now (on an old machine that i never use).

I now might dual-boot 7 and 8.1 to try it out.  My parents may be getting a new PC soon so i'll have to learn 8.1 anyway.

[Nuke]

i never dual boot, too much of a pita, to impractical, waste of drive space. there is a reason i dont get rid of my old rigs.

[MP-Ryan]

Even better is that the metro apps will now be able to run windowed in desktop mode.... no more flipping back and forth between ****ing interfaces.  It's like MS finally realized that no one WANTED them to reinvent the wheel for systems with a keyboard and mouse.

[Klaustrophobia]

i'll just keep holding my breath until it actually arrives.  8.1 was hyped as fixing everything too.

[S-99]

i'll just keep holding my breath until it actually arrives.  8.1 was hyped as fixing everything too.

Please, please, keep holding your breath if you want too. Or don't. I don't think either matters.

Whoever calls this a start menu isn't noticing how unstart menu like it really is just from the screenshot. Really, all i see is just a mini start menu screen. That's right, the start menu screen has been repackaged to be essentially, not much different from the start screen.

What's news?

EDIT: **** this. This is so lazy of microsoft and very misleading. I don't think it's even worth thinking of what windows 9 on up is going to be like with microsoft pandering to the masses constantly with bull**** and even false plecibos. Switch to mac, switch to linux, switch to unix, be a windows 7 hold out (7 is the new xp).  Who cares what you switch to if you do, just make sure you're not  going to be eating **** when you hand over a large sum of money for any os (plenty of free os's can be like eating **** too, but at least with something that was free, it was just a waste of time and not also of wallet).

[The E]

Kneejerk reactions are best reactions.

[S-99]

They probably are the best reactions. I doubt microsoft will ever add a fully normal start menu to win8 ever.

If microsoft did add a start menu. Then we should at least expect an upgrade. One thing i wished that windows start menus had was program categorization such as found in any linux gui with a start menu.

Programs categorized.

The windows classic start menu could start to get pretty disorganized real fast if you install a million programs. The vista/7 start menu got better, but i still think streamlining it with program categories for all programs would be a big help in shortening navigating any start menu for what you need.

People at least want the classic, or the vista/7 start menu for windows 8. Not this mini start screen.

[The E]

I just find it hilarious that people actually believe that there's a functional difference between what the Vista/7 startmenu did, what the start screen does, and what this new start menu will be doing.

[karajorma]

Whoever calls this a start menu isn't noticing how unstart menu like it really is just from the screenshot. Really, all i see is just a mini start menu screen. That's right, the start menu screen has been repackaged to be essentially, not much different from the start screen.

I'm reminded of the Plinkett review of Revenge of the Sith where he comments on Jar Jar Binks still managing to be in the 3rd movie despite doing nothing useful at all.

Lucas just put him in there as a big **** you to audience for not accepting him.

I think this mini start screen is exactly the same sort of thinking. Instead of giving people what they asked for, MS just keep trying to force people to accept their vision of how an OS should be used. It doesn't really matter if they are functionally the same. People simply don't like the start screen.

That said, it would be pretty ****ing easy to get the start menu back. All we need to do is to persuade Google to release their own 3rd party startmenu program which automatically contains links to Google products that could be used to replace Microsoft ones. Google Docs for Office, etc. The start menu would be back in Windows 8 within a few days of that happening.

[Luis Dias]

people still use start menu in 2014. wtf is this ****.

[An4ximandros]

Lawl, OSes that still use tactile interfaces. MentalCommands. Get on my level *****es

[MP-Ryan]

people still use start menu in 2014. wtf is this ****.

By far the majority of my use is done through jumplists... BUT, the Start Menu is infinitely more organized and navigable than the bloody Start Screen Metro tiles in Windows 8 for a desktop PC.

The real problem with Windows 8 is MS went for a unified interface between PCs and tablets and phones, instead of recognizing that they could have built the architecture the same, but simply allowed PCs to boot direct to desktop mode and run Metro apps as windows in desktop mode, with the Metro interface being an option but not a mandatory one.  Similarly, tablets would default to the Metro interface as they currently do, but allow you to switch to desktop mode for non-Metro apps.

Windows 8.1 on a touchscreen tablet is actually pretty slick (I use one at work, and while it stills feels a bit like a beta product, it's pretty functional).  It's the PC non-touch experience that they totally ****ed up, and it's a ridiculously easy fix if MS would grow a godamned brain.

[Luis Dias]

i just use those wimpy buttons on the bottom of the screen... i never use the start menu EXCEPT to use the search wherein i may search some apps, or navigate (very rarely) to the control panel. Both those things don't really need a start menu. A search box would suffice.

[Nuke]

i think windows 2000 had the best layout. it was just a basic, no bull**** interface that did everything it needed to do. xp was nice because you could turn off a lot of things and it could look like the 2000 interface. vista/7 ultimately ruined that for me. 8 is just another change to something i already didnt like very much. the question is will i like it less.

i dont think its the os's job to provide content. anything beyond it being a simple framework to run applications and manage the system really has to go.

linux has some nice interfaces. but the second part about being able to manage the system, id like something more than terminal. many linux users say they love the terminal, but i think getting away from the terminal and add more guis for system configuration and troubleshooting would be the best thing linux developers can do.

[Mito [PL]]

That's why Win XP layout is to be copied and pasted on all Windows releases

[Dragon]

Good to see the start menu back, but I've been using Win 8.1 before, and it isn't as bad as people say. Quite the contrary, it's better than 7 regarding performance and memory usage. Win 7, being a patched Vista, meaning it's still a memory hog. Quite a few things have been fixed, and it does run much smoother than 7. I've been using it on my laptop, and the only reason I didn't put it on my main computer is that it's impossible to upgrade without a full OS reinstall, which I'm not willing to do yet. Yes, the interface is crap, but it's worth coping with if you need the performance.

[castor]

NT4 was good, Win2k somewhat ok. Everything since then.. uhhh.
Basically, by Win95 all the major gui concepts I personally need were there, and almost everything added since then is just a distraction.

Luckily, nothing prevents me form equipping even the very latest linux distros with the archaic interfaces I like.

[Nuke]

win2k didnt initially sit well with gamers, because at the time they had huge collections of win98 and dos games and many did not work on nt/2k. it was actually one of the reasons for windows me, which as everyone knows is the worst windows ever. but i liked win2k and used it until xp came out.