News - Windows 8.2 ‘Threshold’ to bring Start Menu back?

[HEXUS]

Also Modern UI apps may be able to run in desktop windows.

Read more.

[KeyboardDemon]

Are Microsoft slowly peddling backwards here?

Remind me again, what is the start menu actually used for?

[Ferral]

Start menu works much better with a mouse than the Metro UI, I have no intention of getting a touch screen monitor for Windows 8 use.

I have been using the start menu for over 15 year now and for me it is habit, everything is where it should be and easy to get to. For me if they release 8.2 with full start menu the same as 7 then I am happy and imagine that will be the same for a lot of PC users that are used to the start menu.

I think the whole thing with 7 retail is allowing its sale until they get 8.2 the way users want it (ie : full start menu like in 7), then once we see they have put full start menu functionality back in and we start migrating to it that is when 7 retail will be pulled.

[Boon72]

i think a lot of home users, schools & businesses will skip these versions until it is easy to navigate like windows 7, i for 1 see no need to upgrade my windows 7 gaming pc, i have windows 8 on an old laptop which i find a bit awkward to use especially annoying when wanting to shutdown menu wise! i just think it should of been a tablet os rather than a desktop as it's not very practical to use at the moment.

[Tpyo]

Windows may finally get the two main missing functions that programs like Start8 and ModernMix were making a killing from providing to Microsoft customers.

[d3m0n1q_733rz]

Let's see if they'll fix the darn defrag program issues that cause it to error in the middle of an optimization. Doubt it.

[Irien]

How odd... just a couple of days ago I was thinking to myself "why on earth don't MS have different editions, or at least install-time-options, for traditional PCs and workplace PCs?" In one swoop this would largely do away with average users' dislike to Win8, and restore some business confidence too. The new SKUs suggest at least someone at MS has a clue, but of course it takes a fair amount of momentum for a juggernaut like MS to backpedal/u-turn...

[aidanjt]

I don't even know why they're bothering with two SKUs, just ask the damn user what they want on first boot and give an easy way to change the usage paradigms for whatever is currently better for them.

[yeeeeman]

Sooo, Windows 7 market share will still rise until atleast 2015. I guess, good news for Microsoft.

[YazX]

we said it millions of times when windows 8 released and yet they didnt listen and brought it partially back in windows 8.1 and when they got ****ed by sales, now they are going to integrate it as an option. why companies dont learn except in the hard way aka losing money?!!?

if everything said here is true, windows 8.2 is what windows 8 should have been.

[crossy]

Personally I'm not that much bothered for the Start Menu - these days I just tend to use app search rather than trawling through umpteen different folders. So type "calcu" (because plain old "calc" also brings up Libre Office Calc) and press return - done. So to me the start menu is only really for folks who like to mouse-trawl through it.

What I'm not seeing though is a consistent way to do that search. Pressing the windows key switches between "normal" desktop and MUI and sometimes brings up the search that I want - it's not predictable.

App windows though are essential. Heck, Samsung even do that on their top end phones and tablets, so it's not a major leap. What I fail to understand though is why the "normal" desktop and MUI panels couldn't be merged. As it stands the split between them seems very, very artificial and unnatural.

If there's only going to be three SKU's, and one is for mobile, then what's going to happen to the current split between Windows/Windows Pro/Windows Ultimate? Are consumers going to be offered a single pack with optional ("Plus"?) packs to upgrade the features that you'd get in the higher versions?

[YenRug]

If there's only going to be three SKU's, and one is for mobile, then what's going to happen to the current split between Windows/Windows Pro/Windows Ultimate? Are consumers going to be offered a single pack with optional ("Plus"?) packs to upgrade the features that you'd get in the higher versions?

Aren't the extra functions in Windows 8 Pro the functions that are normally used in Enterprise environments? If so, that will be the split in the different SKU's, with Pro becoming this new Enterprise version, along with desktop changes so that there are no appreciable differences to what office workers are used to on older versions.

[Fraz]

Windows 8 releases just seem to be one long facepalm.

[Saracen]

I don't even know why they're bothering with two SKUs, just ask the damn user what they want on first boot and give an easy way to change the usage paradigms for whatever is currently better for them.

Ex-flipping-actly.

And that is what I've been saying I wanted since Day 1. I have no trouble with MS offering MUI as an option, even as the default, provided it is easy to disable. What I do object to is MS trying to force me (and all users) to adopt MUI because, regardless of how much of a pain in the backside it is, it suits their strategic objectives in trying to leverage tablet and mobile phone hardware sales off the back of the installed userbase of desktop OSs.

Well, many people may be content with, even delighred with, MUI, and for them, great. But a 'switch' would still allow that. But I (and I'm far from alone) find MUI and unnecessary and obstruxtive nuisance that adds NOTHING I either need or want, and instead, just gets in the way.

I agree with Ferral, and likewise, have been using Windows for ages. In my case, my first (not exactly pleasant) brief-ish experience was Windows 1. Windows 2 was getter, and we used it. Win 3 was, for me, the first 'real' Windows, and 95/XP was comparative nirvana. And I'm NOT changing the whole mindset because MS are strugling to sell tablet/phone hardware against Apple and Google.

If, and I stress IF this announcement heralds a genuine epiphany by MS, great. Overdue, but great. But the announcement of the Start button was something of a conjuring trick, implying functionality that didn't appear, and was just a cynical PR gimmick.

So I'll wait to see what actually materialises in Threshold before getting too excited about a volte-face on thus by MS. Burnt once, twice shy.

One more thing. MS have been nibbling away at my product loyalty, one way or another, for a while. But never before had I considered mugrating all byt my test system away from Windows/Office. This fiasco has forced me to reevaluate that, and guess what? For much of what I do, Linux and (often free) applications will do what I need, without being expected to feed regular upgrade fees into the MS maw.

Thing is, some of my usage has already migrated to Linux, and whatever MS do with Threshold, they aren't being migrated back. That ship has sailed. Permanently.

I can, with one exception, quite comfortably envisage myself as completely MS-free, and unless Threshold does actually do what it appears to suggest on the tin, that is where I will go.

[MrJim]

Windows 8 releases just seem to be one long facepalm.

My thoughts entirely. I have no problem with Microsoft adding whatever 'features' they like in their operating systems, just as long as they give us option whether or not to use them.

[gagaga]

Funny that expert users are complaining loudest about the loss of the start menu - I though experts start apps by hitting Windows, and typing the app name ... works exactly the same in W7 and W8