In an interview with PC Pro, a senior Microsoft executive said that that the old Start menu had already fallen out of favour with users of Windows 7
“We’d seen the trend in Windows 7. When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar. We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option. We’re saying ‘look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it? What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?'” said Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft. “So I’m a desktop user, I pin the browser, Explorer, whatever my apps are. I don’t go the Start menu as often. If you’re going to the Start screen now, we’re going to unlock a whole new set of scenarios, or you can choose not to go there, stay in the desktop, and it’s still fast. You can’t beat the taskbar.”  He added.He also said that people have started to use keyboard shortcuts instead of going to the start button for launching apps. He claimed that the Metro interface “really works well with the mouse and keyboard”, highlighting features such as the option to search for applications simply by starting to type its name on the Metro Start screen. Well, Do you agree with Microsoft’s explanation?]]>
Article Categories:
Microsoft
All Comments
but if thousands of power users are screaming at you to give it back then let them have it!! let em eat cake!!
agree. I used the start menu all the time and was one of my favourite features in Windows.
i dont really use the start button but if you want i will give it to you
Can’t you just press the Windows Key? Â That brings up the Start Screen, which, IMO, is better than the Start Menu, since you can just type whatever you’re looking for faster.
i agree. in all of those can my dad use windows 8 video they never acknowledged the fact that there keyboards had a start button.
your opinion is relative and not everyone shares it, I prefer the traditional start menu. Nothing is wrong with it.
No kidding ?
Not a high percentage of customers buy Mac, is it a reason for Apple to can it ?
Seriously, Microsoft should come with a better excuse than that because this excuse doesn’t make sense at all.Wasn’t the start button an option to access to the Start screen ?Wasn’t better to have several option for the same task especially an option most Windows users are used to ?
According to Paul Thurrott:
“based on interviews with the people at Microsoft who are actually responsible for the Windows 8 user experience. The real reason the Start button was removed from Windows 8 is that Microsoft needed a consistent Start button experience that would work in both the desktop and all Metro screens. And now it has one, in the form of the new Start tip, which appears exactly onscreen where the old Start button used to go. End of story.”
Well, I like a clean desktop. Personally I would love having the Start Button back. Everything is so organized and my metro screen has four tabs. Desktop first then Music, Video, and photo. See clean all around. I use my computer everyday. And especially for gaming. Windows 8 just honestly sucks. I now use a Linux partition more than Windows 8. I loved Windows 7 so much i downgraded my laptop the first day i got it. As soon as I got it out of the box, I snatched my Windows 7 ultimate restore disk and installed it from there. Never booted to windows 8….