back to article Windows RT gets new Start menu – but no Cortana or Win 10 apps

Microsoft has delivered a minor update to Windows RT, the ARM-based version of Windows 8 which runs on Surface 1 and 2 and on tablets from Lenovo, Nokia and others. Windows RT is a locked-down version of Windows which includes the Windows desktop and Microsoft Office, but allows only Store apps to be installed. The OS failed …

  1. hplasm
    Coat

    Personal Touch.

    The update was delivered to each RT user in person, together with a fruit basket.

    1. TonyJ

      Re: Personal Touch.

      "Personal Touch.

      The update was delivered to each RT user in person, together with a fruit basket"

      Both of them.

      1. TonyJ

        Re: Personal Touch.

        Hahaha...I guess one of them bought one of these things, hence our single downvote!

        That or no sense of humour...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Personal Touch.

      And a grovelling apology for foisting such crap on you in the first place.

      1. Sandtitz Silver badge

        Re: Personal Touch.

        "And a grovelling apology for foisting such crap on you in the first place."

        I've never seen an RT device, nor know anyone who owns one, so can you tell us how it was crap?

        I know the app selection was very poor but was the device itself somehow crap, i.e. was the hardware slow or unwieldy or unstable? Was it the UI - Windows 8 on phones is perfectly fine and Windows 8 on PC's with touch display is also fine, but was the WinRT UI crippled beyond recognition or something?

        At least Microsoft is still providing patches for the devices until 2018, according to Wikipedia.

        1. Hellcat

          Re: Personal Touch.

          "I've never seen an RT device, nor know anyone who owns one, so can you tell us how it was crap?"

          Are you sure you dont own one because you have summed up fairly well all the false claims that I can simply say 'no' to... Well apart from possibly stability if you have it balanced on the very end of your lap. Yes the apps were lacking, but the decent browser made needing many apps pointless. Facebook? Just go to www.facebook.com! It's crap because 1. it's cool to call things done by Microsoft crap and 2. OMG you can't install your own apps (not that it was ever claimed that you could, and really well publisised that you couldn't!)

        2. Vince

          Re: Personal Touch.

          I've got a Lenovo Yoga running RT.

          It works, it comes with office with no subscription crap, and it works fine all the time.

          Nothing crap about it, meets the needs of my other half perfectly.

          1. Hellcat
            Big Brother

            Re: Personal Touch.

            Not sure which part of your post your downvoter disagrees with.

            Either they don't believe you have a RT Yoga, they don't believe it is working, or they don't believe you have a partner!

            To know any of them they must be stalking you! big time Beware!

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Personal Touch.

            Vince,

            Comes with office does it ?

            Well that's nice to know as that's about all it will run and a few fart apps from the Windows Store.

            1. Sandtitz Silver badge

              Re: Personal Touch. @6x7=42

              So you're reading this thread but couldn't reply to my question about the supposed crapness of RT? Why?

              Have you even seen such a rarity or do you just have a huge chip on your shoulder and thus just talking out of your ass?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Personal Touch. @6x7=42

                Sandititz,

                I poked at one in John Lewis a while back.

                If it looks like shit, smells like shit then I know to avoid shit.

        3. Trixr

          Re: Personal Touch.

          The device itself was fine, and the detachable keyboard was pretty good.

          The big show-stopper from my POV was not being able to install non-Store apps. And their going out of their way to nobble efforts like Firefox on ARM. Putty. And no bloody ad-blocker. Blah blah blah

      2. GitMeMyShootinIrons

        Re: Personal Touch.

        "And a grovelling apology for foisting such crap on you in the first place."

        Calling it crap is harsh. It was a reasonable version 1.0 product that was about as appreciated as the finest steak sandwich would be at a vegan food conference. And bought by about as many too.

        Less Windows RT, more RIP.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why call it a start menu?

    Given that it will be empty.

    1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

      Re: Why call it a start menu?

      Well. You have to start somewhere.

  3. Christopher Reeve's Horse

    Perhaps it's not Windows 7/8 users that deserve the free upgrade to Windows 10, but rather anyone unfortunate enough to own an RT device.

    As soon as MS came out with unfortunate 'write once run anywhere' statement their OS 'landscape' has never looked so fragmented or disillusioned.

    Something, something... resolving existing customer grievances rather than upsetting everyone else, something, something, something...

  4. John Munyard

    Customer Service

    Yeah shame about all those Surface 1 & 2 users who were mislead by MS about thier tablet's inability to run legacy windows apps (even Microsoft ones).

    And now they are abandoned with a piece of kit (in my case less than two years old), hardly supported, with a app store full of juvenile, poor apps. We just have to get on with it.

    Microsoft may have screwed up with Windows RT, but this is NOT a great experience for those who bought early Surface tablets.

    1. Syntax Error

      Re: Customer Service

      Microsoft should buy them back. They have just ripped off millions of customers with their Arm efforts.

      1. YARR

        Re: Customer Service

        If they can run a (cut-down) Windows 10 an a non-MS, low-spec ARM powered RaspberryPi, why can't they support it on an own-brand ARM powered Surface?

        Is there a standardised boot loader / UEFI BIOS equivalent for ARM devices yet, so generic ARM OS builds can be released?

      2. bobgameon

        Re: Customer Service

        Either buy them back or give the poor people who got stuck with RT a huge discount if they buy a Surface Pro.

  5. jake Silver badge

    Nice.

    Redmond continues it's tradition of flatulance.

  6. Dan 55 Silver badge
    WTF?

    What on earth is the point of this?

    As RT is locked down the only desktop apps allowed are those in the Office suite. So now there's an empty useless desktop which can launch Office or TIFKAM apps.

    1. Hellcat

      Re: What on earth is the point of this?

      Access to browser, windows explorer, notepad, command prompt, remote desktops? Hardly pointless.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Got an RT Surface2 and it 's ok. I can do basic web work when on holiday which is all I need it for. FTP is odd via network something or other, but it works.

    Horizontal scolling is dumb - but as a tablet it's fine.

    No adblocker is a bloody nightmare - but it does let me see how the greater web experience appears these days

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can anyone please tell me

    how do I right-click on a touch screen ? My tablet can't tell the difference between my right hand and the left one.

    It's not a joke, I'm just curious.

    1. Hellcat

      Re: Can anyone please tell me

      Hold down instead of tapping for the RT. Can't speak for other devices.

  9. Philleywoo

    I bought a Surface RT and it was fast and great battery life, except for the lack of apps, I sold it last month as it was obvious Microsoft was going to S**T on it's customers again with the universal app store being missed off the latest update.

    They could have at lease given the ability for the users to install their own ARM compiled apps!

  10. Daniel von Asmuth
    Alien

    Circular Frames

    Windows that are round instead of oblong? Must be the biggest hype since Doug Engelbart invented the 'mouse'!

  11. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    WinRT problems

    "I've never seen an RT device, nor know anyone who owns one, so can you tell us how it was crap?"

    Reviews I saw, they found they could buy a nice notebook *and* tablet for less than the RT tablet (which Microsoft implied could be used as a replacement for a notebook and a tablet.) People found (since they keyboard was really an afterthought) that they could not plug it in *and* use the keyboard. One reviewer that wanted to like it pointed out any individual problem he had with it alone would not have been a big deal, there were just too many little problems all together.

    Furthermore, with MacOS8 (or OS9? I forget) transition form Motorola 68k to PowerPC being effectively seamless, and OSX transition from PowerPC to x86 being pretty seamless, and Ubuntu for ARM being so boringly seamless it's like Ubuntu for x86 with a different CPU listed in "About this computer" (and /proc/cpuinfo), people had expectations of WinRT. It was disappointing when WinRT went from first announcement of "Windows for ARM" to "no it won't include an x86 emulation" to "no it won't run Windows stuff ported to ARM either, just a cut-down .NET runtime" over a matter of a few weeks.

    "Yeah shame about all those Surface 1 & 2 users who were mislead by MS about thier tablet's inability to run legacy windows apps (even Microsoft ones)."

    Don't know if you're serious or not. I thought they made it VERY clear (after about a week of confusion, WAY before Surface shipped!) that these would not be running real Windows in any meaningful sense of the word. The ads showed it running Office, some freehand drawing app, Office, Office, and Office again. You can't expect Microsoft to underpromise and overdeliver, so this made it clear to me that you could expect this thing to run Office, and a freehand drawing app, with anything else being a bonus... not whatever apps you want. Although (per the previous paragraph) expecting WinRT to run Windows apps would not have been an unreasonable expectation.

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