back to article Windows 8.1 Start button SPOTTED in the wild

Leaked screenshots of a prerelease build of Microsoft's forthcoming Windows 8.1 update reveal that the rumors are true and the Start button really is coming back – though perhaps not in the way users of previous versions of Windows might like. Screenshot of Windows 8.1 showing new Start button Thar she blows! That little …

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  1. mastodon't
    Gimp

    Fisher price did a sidegrade

    and failed again.

    Here's hoping the 'every other is one is good' dictum still holds

    When's 9 out?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fisher price did a sidegrade

      Yes but most annoyingly I need to break my hardware cycle, I'm stuck on upgrading hardware for every other O/S unfortunately the wrong ones.. argh!

      I find myself a vista user, due a hardware upgrade. have pity.

  2. K. Adams
    Stop

    Since when did Microsoft start taking design cues...

    ... from the Gnome Shell folks?

    Could be a bit of Ubuntu's Unity Dash UI in there, too.

    FWIW, I'll stick with 7 on the Windows side, and Cinnamon or GNOME Classic/Fallback (top and bottom app/widget bars) on the GNU/Linux side...

    1. Nigel 11
      Thumb Up

      Re: Since when did Microsoft start taking design cues...

      Nice to see a mention of Cinnamon.

      When the Gnome folks messed up with "3", the open-source community bitched about it a lot and then got on with doing what Microsoft are signally failing to do. One lot wrote a user-friendly environment to run on top of the new Graphics libraries (Cinnamon). The other lot rescued the old interface, warts and all (Mate). And of course, KDE, Gnome 2, XFCE, and dozens of others never actually got taken away.

      I tried KDE, Mate and Cinnamon, decided I liked Cinnamon most, made "yum install Cinnamon" a standard part of my set-up repertoire, and stopped bitching.

      Microsoft's "start button" is no Cinnamon. It's a fig-leaf with very serious caterpillar damage.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    problem is

    The lack of start button is only one of many usability problems

  4. BongoBoy
    FAIL

    Oh dear

    They do seem to hate their users don't they.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its still a Bummer, Balmer.

    That's all

  6. Godwhacker
    Stop

    Straight to "all apps"?

    This is what part of my 'all apps' screen looks like: http://imageshack.us/a/img89/3755/windows8allapps.png

    Perhaps it'll all be fine, but I'm not going to put any bets on it

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Straight to "all apps"?

      Tell me it's a mock-up. If it isn't then it needs to be printed on an A1-sized plastic board and Balmer needs to be hit round the head with it until he gets it.

    2. reno79

      Re: Straight to "all apps"?

      Mine looks absolutely nothing like that. You have language packs listed as apps which prompts me to think you have a problem somewhere along the line.

  7. Khaptain Silver badge
    Linux

    Give us the damned choice

    They started by ramming TIFKAM down our throats.

    Now they would gently like to nudge it donw our throats.

    Why not simply give us the choice, TIFKAM OR the Start Menu ( aka W7 Start menu).The half arsed approach never works.

  8. WylieCoyoteUK
    Devil

    Problem is that the start screen replaces the start menu.

    It's just a kludgy shortcut to making a new UI

    The substitute start menus I have seen disable TIFKAM.

    So it looks like bringing the menu back back means that TIFKAM won't work unless they actually code it separately.

    (I could be wrong, not seen all of them)

    As mentioned above, word on the street is that Win8 is a pile of doodoo, and Joe public will be hard to convince otherwise.

    Chromebooks are apparently selling well, however.

    1. Alan Newbury
      Happy

      Actually, Start8 from Stardock can be configured to have TIFKAM as a menu option, so yes, it does work with it . You can also add TIFKAM applications to the start menu - you click it, it runs full screen and when you close it you return to the desktop. Best of all worlds really.

      1. Not That Andrew

        And Classic Shell doesn't disable TIFKAM by default either, although it can be set to hide all TIFKAM except the login screen. And you can also run TIFKAM programs from the Classic Shell start menu. So I don't know where the OP got his ideas from

  9. MIc
    Facepalm

    More speculation

    More FUD from the reg on a product not yet released....

    1. Stuart Elliott
      Trollface

      Re: More speculation

      Let me guess, your surname is Rosoft...

      I use Windows 8 with Start8, both in the office and at home, and genuinely like it, BECAUSE it's how I want it, not how some marketing droid who wants us to keep our noses in the Windows App Store trough wants me to use my computer.

      It's hardly FUD when it is being shown by someone WITH the product, especially given the amount of negative feedback the original Windows 8 beta users gave TIFKAM, yet to see it still rammed down their throat come release time.

  10. Nathan 13
    FAIL

    In other words

    Windows 8.whatever is still shit

  11. MIc

    What is missing

    Can someone explain to me what the old start menu did that the new one doesn't do? I want to run an app I hit the start button and type the first few letters and hit enter.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: What is missing

      >I want to run an app I hit the start button and type the first few letters and hit enter.

      Those app's (ie. the one's you can remember the names of) should be pinned to your taskbar.

      However, when I want to play a game say, I would like to see a list of possible games rather than play guess the filename of an installed game.

      Also it is only having used Thinkpad/Lenovo laptops for a while that I know that their backup application is called "Rescue and Recovery"; however, I knew from my very early explorations on that all Thinkpad/Lenovo applications were listed under the "ThinkVantage" tab on the menu and so was able to find it again with relatively little effort. The standard Win8 interface offers no such support - as I pointed out in a comment on another article, it wasn't until I had installed Classic Shell (and hence was able to easily browse/scan a menu) that I discovered that HP had included a Win8 getting started guide as part of their standard install suite.

      1. reno79

        Re: What is missing

        You're not playing guess the filename, you're typing the name of the game:

        SimCity: "sim..." and there it is

        Knights Of The Old Republic: "kni" and there it is, or even "rep" and there it is.

        It's not hard, in fact it's the same as windows 7 in functionality just with a different visual look.

        1. Ben Tasker

          Re: What is missing

          But that's precisely what he said he didn't want to do. He wants to hover over a folder called 'Games' and see a list of all the games that are currently installed.

          What he's saying is: If you're looking for Knights of the Republic then old and new are probably equal. If you're in the mood to play something but not quite sure what, then the new menu is largely useless as there doesn't seem to be an equally easy way to list all installed games

    2. Wade Burchette

      Re: What is missing

      "Can someone explain to me what the old start menu did that the new one doesn't do?"

      Sure can.

      (1) Can the new start screen get to system restore just by typing "system restore"?

      (2) Can the new start screen get to Programs and Features (where you can remove programs) just by typing "uninstall" and not having to click on a submenu?

      (3) Can the new start screen let you see what other programs are currently open and not minimized?

      Those are some of my 3 of my biggest gripes with the start screen. One of my biggest gripes is how difficult it is to find system restore and when I have found it, on some computers it is turned of by default. Not good.

      1. Tom 35

        Re: What is missing

        Finding settings in Windows 8 is even harder then older versions of Windows.

        When you search the Microsoft site to find out how you get crap like this... (looking for change font size)

        "Open Screen Resolution by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering Display in the search box, tapping or clicking Settings, and then tapping or clicking Display."

        What?

        They tell you to search, often a word that you would never guess, or remember. Searching for the actual setting gives you nothing.

        If you want to run your not-metro pong app it's great, but if you want to actually do something it's crap.

      2. El Andy

        Re: What is missing

        @Wade burchette:

        1+2, yes - they've removed the distinction between applications/settings in the 8.1 Start search so you'll get appropriate results.

        3. Not really sure what you mean there, "minimized" is a concept that only applies to desktop applications. Metro style applications are always running, at least conceptually, even though they only really get CPU time when they are in the foreground (and occasionly for specific types of background processing) . You can see this if you log into a Windows 8 machine with a LiveID and somebody sends you a Messenger message for example, the app will notify you even though you never "started" it. When you let go of the idea you need to be concerned with what is or isn't "running" at any one time, Windows 8's interface makes a lot more sense.

  12. MIc
    Trollface

    Bunch of nancies

    The more I dig into this win 7 vs. win 8 issue and what "benefit" is missing from the new menu the more I think it's a bunch of pansies calling for Waambulance. The old win 7 menu is a cramped POS.

    1. Daniel B.
      Trollface

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      Did that MS paycheck arrive on the mail yet?

      1. MIc

        Re: Bunch of nancies

        I even used the troll icon.

        1. M Gale

          Re: Bunch of nancies

          I even used the troll icon.

          Quite so.

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      Ahh. But it's a POS that most people recognise and understand.

      Oh, by the way. Using the window key and the first few letters does not present you a menu of what's installed in the way that the old start menu did.

    3. Stuart Elliott
      Gimp

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      Wow, I've just been back and read your previous posts, you REALLY are a Microsoft shill aren't you...

      Either that, or you're as blinkered as Eadon is.

      1. jason 7
        Facepalm

        Re: Bunch of nancies

        Actually he might be one of the dozen or so people here that have actually used Windows 8 rather than just following the herd in largely ill-informed or just downright pointless outrage.

        All I'm seeing is a lot of people that aren't as good with tech as they think they are.

        If someone can't configure Windows 8 in just a few minutes to their liking (unless of course they have some bizarre custom setup that no OS would please 100%) then really they should find another profession.

        And don't give me all that "Oh you shouldn't need to configure an OS to work" crud as we all tweak and configure our OS to our liking when we install it. I doubt very few here just install and go without installing any further apps/software/GUI tweaks.

        Really guys, the fact that Windows 8 doesn't have a largely useless Start Menu anymore isn't worth the fury. Especially when it takes all of 30 seconds to put one back for free.

        Maybe aim it at something more important?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Bunch of nancies

          Okay, I'm a Win8 user and I take umbridge with what you've just posted. While the learning curve is not as steep as people make out there is a learning curve and no tutorial. I had to do an internet serach just to find the power option. I'll repeat that, I had to search the internet to find out how to switch my PC off.

          Its second nature now but that learning curve should not be there and acting like anyone who gets stuck isn't an IT bod is a bit discorteous.

          I like Windows 8 but there is a lot that needs improving and most of that does not seem to be in Windows 8.1 and until its there I can't recommend people to try Windows 8. Those improvements are metro icons for My Computer and the Control Panel on the Start Screen as default. Make the right charm bar always on while on the Metro screen and Desktop screen. Allow the creation of folders on the Start Screen and display the date/time, internet connection and power options in the unused space at the top of the Start Screen. Basically MS needs to stop hiding things from the Start Screen.

          1. jason 7

            @ MattEvanC3 Re: Bunch of nancies

            "Its second nature now but that learning curve should not be there and acting like anyone who gets stuck isn't an IT bod is a bit discourteous."

            Yes it may have been however, when I see post after post on TECH forums from 'TECH people' saying -

            "It took me three weeks to work out how to shut it down!"

            "I cant stop the Metro Apps appearing!"

            "I cant use it! It's impossible without a Start Button!"

            And many more non issues that are quite simply sorted or adjusted then you have to wonder -

            1. Have they actually used it?

            2. They work in IT but can't handle a simple challenge/find a fix?

            3. They didn't think to use Goggle to find out how?

            4. Have they no ability to learn a new way of working? Often in work and life we have to learn new stuff we don't like necessarily but we manage and get on with it.

            You can see my point surely? It does all look very suspicious, so forgive me and a few others here when we call 'bullsh*t!' on occasion.

            These issues should be so very very trivial for virtually everyone here but instead folks are making out it's impossible to work out and just give up.

            Do they do this at work when their boss asks for something new? I'd hope not.

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

              1. jason 7
                Facepalm

                Re: @ MattEvanC3 Bunch of nancies

                Well enjoy next April then!

            2. Moeluk
              Facepalm

              Re: @ MattEvanC3 Bunch of nancies

              Seriously do you realise what you sound like.....

              I'm 3 weeks in to actually giving Windows 8, a proper workout to test suitability moving forward. (And to shut up our guy in charge of tech)

              Everything is taking longer...than it ever did in Win 7...and it's all very good with people saying "oh you only have to reset all the default file associations" DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY FILE TYPES there are that you use without even REALISING IT....

              If i've got to set them up on every single persons machine across the business it will drive me nuts. All for no reason.

              I've got one person thats the official company test user and is working out in the field with it every day, after a little over a month, she's just about hitting the 'wanting to dropkick her laptop out of the window stage', I thought i'd fixed her wifi issues...but it turns out that you have to change your power management settings to prevent it from disconnecting the wifi every 30 minutes! I mean who in the name of christ thought that would be a GOOD IDEA....

              If people send a link from sharepoint, it now has to fire up IE before asking you what you want to do with it, open it or download it (not an issue with win 7...Word just fires up straights away and loads it up)

              It's just a complete mess, and I really don't want to deploy it...to the point that i will probably circumvent the tech directors orders and buy Win 7 machines, instead of Win 8 for as long as i possibly can..even if it risks getting me fired.

              The sooner this whole embarassment disappears the better!

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: @ MattEvanC3 Bunch of nancies

                That Wifi "issue" also exists in Windows7. The power saving defaults are a nightmare on both. I lost weeks trying to do overnight batch converts that kept failing in Windows 7 until I figured out Windows 7 was switching my HDDs off as a default power saving tool. Then there was the issue of 3rd party Blu-Ray playing software like PowerDVD not being recognised as an exception to the power saving defaults so the monitor was being switched off 30 minutes into a movie.

                All those problems you are describing aren't unique to Windows 8.

                1. Moeluk
                  FAIL

                  Re: @ MattEvanC3 Bunch of nancies

                  Yet...oddly out of the 6 Lenovo laptops, all of the same spec...this issue has ONLY cropped up in 8....

                  What say you to that sir?

                  1. jason 7

                    Re: @ MattEvanC3 Bunch of nancies

                    And there I was pointing out that folks cant quickly sort out what are mostly cosmetic UI changes.

                    Yes sure there are some changes deeper under the hood that might cause some folks issues, that's happened many times over the many versions. That's a pain sure but it happens.

                    Yet most of the stuff moaned about over and over on these topics is pretty simple cosmetics.

                    Essentially 80% of what folks are complaining about in Windows 8 is largely trivial and easily changed.

          2. Lusty

            Re: Bunch of nancies

            "While the learning curve is not as steep as people make out there is a learning curve and no tutorial."

            No tutorial apart from the VIDEO at first logon which shows you everything that has changed? Oh, you closed that because you knew better?

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Bunch of nancies @Jason 7 11:23

          Re: Bunch of nancies

          >And don't give me all that "Oh you shouldn't need to configure an OS to work" crud as we all tweak and configure our OS to our liking when we install it. I doubt very few here just install and go without installing any further apps/software/GUI tweaks.

          It may be a surprise that for practically all previous MS desktop deployments, many enterprises did roll out the full as-is out-of-the-box-experience to the end users and only really used group policy etc. to set up security settings (limited user permissions) and domain access details. Remember in the corporate world, add-ins (such as Classic Shell) are another thing to be integrated and maintained and to go wrong when MS release an update, hence need a business case to get included, as although the software may be free the creation and maintenance of a reference build isn't.

    4. stucs201

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      Actually even though I hate TIFKAM I have to agree the Win 7 start menu was cramped compared to the XP and earlier versions. I always assumed cramming the start menu into the corner on Win 7 was in preparation for the smaller screen of tablets, but since they introduced TIFKAM for that I have no idea why they got rid of the proper cascading XP style menu.

    5. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      It is fair to say that the scrolling all programs menu in Vista/7 is a backward step as far as usability is concerned. Fortunately Classic Shell fixed that years ago.

    6. MIc
      Coat

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      TROLLLLOLOLOLOOLOLOLOL!

      noobz

    7. Nigel 11

      Re: Bunch of nancies

      Try configuring a PC for a university, or even a school. Large numbers of different programs. Students in each department and/or year use a different small subset of them. A menu is a perfect way to organise them. 1000+ tiles is random (or even defined) order isn't.

      I'd be perfectly happy if those stupid tiles were a new option that an experienced sysadmin could turn OFF. But no, Microsoft insists on ramming them down everyone's throat. And that's only a small part of what's wrong with the Win 8 UI. It also insists on going full-screen at every opportunity. What I want to do is have several windows open on my nice large 1920x1080 screen, and switch between them with one mouse-click. That's WHY I have a large monitor (and they're cheap and flat these days, so it's no great expense - some of my colleagues have TWO).

      If they don't fix it by the time Windows 7 is EOLed, I'll say goodbye to Microsoft even if I have to find a new job to do so. For now I'll just say no to 8. They've still got a while for the penny to drop, though it's looking a lot as if the board is going to have to eject Ballmer while there's still time to save the company. I've seen other big companies go down the plug-hole, because the boss's ego was too big to make the U turn that the customers were demanding.

  13. Boyd Crow

    Just to generate print in the media?

    So, Microsoft has leaked a photo showing a "start button" that neither looks nor acts likes a Start button and media GOES WILD!

    Nobody at a desktop wants ANY animated, Crayolur-inspired tiles, animated or otherwise, distracting them from their actual work. Give me a nice, clean primarily-text-based interface and I will show you someone who is getting things done, rather than watching things do.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Just to generate print in the media?

      "Give me a nice, clean primarily-text-based interface and I will show you someone who is getting things done, rather than watching things do."

      Are you asking for a return to the highly functional and 'clean' Win3 UI by any chance?

      Interestingly, I suspect that the vast majority of Enterprise applications (eg. ERP, CRM etc.) will continue to have UI's that are based on Win2000 classic shell (which isn't too far off the Win3 UI), because as you rightly point out they purpose is to help get work done and not to look 'modern', 'cool' or any of the other words MS use in their adverts...

    2. NogginTheNog

      Re: Just to generate print in the media?

      "Give me a nice, clean primarily-text-based interface and I will show you someone who is getting things done, rather than watching things do"

      Well said that man! I'm guessing you don't use an iPhone or iPad much then?!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It still amazes me how many luddites there are in the technology sector...

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