what do you need the start button for?

[seta-san]

I'm not arguing that 2000 wasn't good, but XP improved upon it in countless ways. Me wasn't as bad as most people think IF you disabled system restore, which most people probably didn't, but it was simply an updated version of 98 and not the next evolution of NT. The entire 9x line was incredibly unstable and prone to random crashing; 95-Me were all crap.

yeah. anytime i worked on peoples computers back then the first thing i did was diable system restore. Without it running ME was just as stable as 98SE

[Daniel_Pooh]

yeah. anytime i worked on peoples computers back then the first thing i did was diable system restore. Without it running ME was just as stable as 98SE

Dude your hot!

[PGHammer]

I would say that if what and how things are on the start screen doesn't matter, the start screen itself is irrelevant. You are using search to get your stuff and never browse the list of stuff, why forced to see the list - everytime you open the start screen - at all? Just the search bar and a results pane would be enough, aint it? That's what the start menu, to me, was.

That is exactly the case with Search by default - it does NOT bring up "All Apps" or even "Applications" - just the results of your search are displayed.

For that reason alone, the StartScreen *is* pretty much irrelevant - and I have been saying just that. (Why else do I only see the StartScreen a mere three times a week?)

The problem with the Search bar is that it's not *visual* enough when searching for applications (as opposed to data files) - besides, the Search Bar is still available (as is the Address Bar).

[Detection]

Tried finding the thread requesting this and failed, someone was looking for Start7 a while ago but the site was down

Its back up

http://www.startmenu7.com/index.html

[Southern Patriot]

. I also do not need to look at some other window while my start screen is open, and neither does anyone else.

So, you feel qualified to declare that no one would ever need to see something on the Start screen while looking at another window? If you like, I could easily post a few examples of situations that require exactly that.

[kjstech]

I constantly simply try to drag the mouse anywhere to scroll anything in the metro UI left and right (like the start screen). However this action does not work. I have to move the mouse all the way to the bottom of the screen and grab the little scroller.

I guess my natural instinct is how I would interface with the UI as if it were a tablet. Like on my ipad for example to page between screens in the springboard you just drag your finger anywhere on the screen. Your not regulated to a scroll bar.

[HawkMan]

I would like the start screen to be click draggable, so you could just click and hold and drag sideways for scroll it. Hopefully they add that, but since my mouse wheel works fine for scrolling I don't have a problem with it.

[Dot Matrix]

I constantly simply try to drag the mouse anywhere to scroll anything in the metro UI left and right (like the start screen). However this action does not work. I have to move the mouse all the way to the bottom of the screen and grab the little scroller.

I guess my natural instinct is how I would interface with the UI as if it were a tablet. Like on my ipad for example to page between screens in the springboard you just drag your finger anywhere on the screen. Your not regulated to a scroll bar.

The mouse can be used to 'push' the start screen from side to side, however this functionality was not added until the beta and was not in the developer's preview.

Also, the scroll wheel can be used on the start screen as well.

[cropcircles]

Evidently MS thought it might be a nice feature. CP was a smoke screen

[PGHammer]

Evidently MS thought it might be a nice feature. CP was a smoke screen

Evidently MS thought it might be a nice feature. CP was a smoke screen

canouna was, in fact, dead-on about the Consumer Preview's stability - not even the detractors are complaining about that.

The stability and backward-compatibility are, in fact, the two biggest wins for the Consumer Preview, in my experience so far.

The comparative coddling that production environments get is not supposed to be possible - let alone necessary - with an OS being tested.

We're supposed to flog a test OS like Parris Island DIs flog raw recruits.

This is the first public beta of Windows since that of Windows 98 (the original - not SE) where I could flog it to my heart's content without worrying about OS-related stability issues.

And not even the Windows 98 Public Preview was this stable.

[HawkMan]

Evidently MS thought it might be a nice feature. CP was a smoke screen

If you read what he's saying, he's not saying that put the start button back. He said there's a new start button in the corner, i.e. the to corner button that was simply a simplified start screen imitation, it's most likely been replaced with the new metro windows flag.