what do you need the start button for?

[xWhiplash]

that was removed by default in Lion as they want you to use the launch pad (though I added it back to the dock because the launchpad was badly implemented in Lion)

Hmm. When I upgraded it was still there for some reason. Or maybe it was just the ones I created myself.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Hmm. When I upgraded it was still there for some reason. Or maybe it was just the ones I created myself.

yes, it's because you upgraded that it's still there as it keeps your settings

if you were to do a clean install it would be gone (found this out myself fairly recently)

[hotdog666al]

I pin all my most used applications to the start menu, so I can access them at high speed. I like to be able to see the other windows I have open whilst doing this, as I often have many windows open across my screen.

Also use it to jump to locations on the disk quickly, again, without covering up my whole workspace whilst doing so.

[giantpotato]

If you want to do two things at once in metro you just need to dock a metro app to one side of the screen. Want to game and read a walkthrough or watch a tutorial? Dock metro IE to one side and open your game.

[The Dark Knight]

If you want to do two things at once in metro you just need to dock a metro app to one side of the screen. Want to game and read a walkthrough or watch a tutorial? Dock metro IE to one side and open your game.

I want to do 3 things. Even 4 things. With this monstrosity called Metro, I can only do 2 things at a time.

Example, I generally have 2 IM programs, one browser, one media player (with either videos or music) open on my desktop. I also keep other programs open, but minimized, and bring them up when I need them (while keeping everything else open on the desktop). This is IMPOSSIBLE in Metro. Now, you may say that most programs out there are non metro, which means they run on the classic desktop. But that scenario only holds true at this point in time. With Microsoft being all bull headed with Metro, more and more apps will be Metro exclusive, making the classic desktop redundant.

So you see? Metro is very limited. It is fine for some, but not everyone. With the old Start Menu way, everyone was happy. Also, almost no one is asking them to ditch Metro completely. We are asking for choice. Keep Metro, but also provide the option to easily and completely disable it.

Microsoft is being really stupid and arrogant about this whole Metro business especially considering their size and market share.

[migo]

They're not being stupid. Everyone is moving to smaller screens. You're not going to have 4 things open side by side on a laptop. Everyone I know with a desktop has an ancient P4 one. Anyone with a Core 2 Duo or newer has a laptop. Most of the laptops are 13", with a few at 15". Yeah, there are exceptions, but this is the majority, and that's who MS is building the next version of Windows for. They removed Midi support in Vista, which upset a few people, but most people don't touch it anymore. Metro isn't optimised for large screens because it's optimised for small screens. That's not a bad thing at all.

[+Warwagon MVC]

They're not being stupid. Everyone is moving to smaller screens. You're not going to have 4 things open side by side on a laptop. Everyone I know with a desktop has an ancient P4 one. Anyone with a Core 2 Duo or newer has a laptop. Most of the laptops are 13", with a few at 15". Yeah, there are exceptions, but this is the majority, and that's who MS is building the next version of Windows for. They removed Midi support in Vista, which upset a few people, but most people don't touch it anymore. Metro isn't optimised for large screens because it's optimised for small screens. That's not a bad thing at all.

I have 4 screen's what about me? What about People who have a 30 inch monitor?

[migo]

Tough luck. You're in the minority. Just like MIDI users.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Tough luck. You're in the minority. Just like MIDI users.

and all the stock brokers and other IT people with multiple monitors?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

and all the stock brokers and other IT people with multiple monitors?

yes, that's still the minority

face it, the mass of people using computers in this day and age are all mostly casual users, and most casual users don't have more than one screen. us power users are very much a minority right now

[DJGM]

Everyone I know with a desktop has an ancient P4 one.

It's about time they all upgraded to at least dual-core PC's. For those people, 2005 called and wants it's single core junk back!

Anyone with a Core 2 Duo or newer has a laptop.

Absolute total and utter bullcrap. My PC runs on a Core2Quad CPU. Not the latest tech, but guess what ... It's a standard desktop.

I also have a second PC downstairs hooked up to the TV as a media center system. Guess what ... that's a desktop too.

I do have a laptop ... but it's an 10 year old Pentium III based Dell!

[+Warwagon MVC]

It's about time they all upgraded to at least dual-core PC's. For those people, 2005 called and wants it's single core junk back!

Absolute total and utter bullcrap. My PC runs on a Core2Quad CPU. Not the latest tech, but guess what ... It's a standard desktop.

I also have a second PC downstairs hooked up to the TV as a media center system. Guess what ... that's a desktop too.

I do have a laptop ... but it's an 10 year old Pentium III based Dell!

I'm waiting for the you're the minority response!

[migo]

That's absolutely right, you're in the minority.

[TAZMINATOR]

If you move to a Mac you will be moving to basically the same ideal. Mac's do not have a "Start Button." They use the "Dock" or "Launchpad." Not sure why people think the Mac is the same as XP or Win 7 when it comes to a Start Button. The "Apple Icon" cannot even be activated with a key stroke as the Win Start Button can. The only way to launch a program within the "Apple Icon" is move to the the icon click then drop down to "Recent" to start up an application.

My brother has iMac... I like it, there are no icons on the desktop... the tasks on dock... which I want...

I like menubar that sits at top of the screen and dock at the bottom on the iMac...

Windows 8 has tiles on the desktop... which I don't want... I like the desktop with NO icons ... just display the weather info ... like I have it on my Windows 7. I may stick with Windows 7 for the rest of years until they end their support.

I know Mac do not have start button... I know mac is not the same as the rest of OS available today...

Hopefully I get either iMac or Mac Mini within a few months... I will see. If not, I stIck with Windows 7 for the rest of the years.

if i have a tablet, Windows 8 is fine on it... no problem..

[Raa]

I use it to operate all the features of my desktop computer on a daily basis. I require my start button to work.

[jakem1]

I want to do 3 things. Even 4 things. With this monstrosity called Metro, I can only do 2 things at a time.

Example, I generally have 2 IM programs, one browser, one media player (with either videos or music) open on my desktop. I also keep other programs open, but minimized, and bring them up when I need them (while keeping everything else open on the desktop). This is IMPOSSIBLE in Metro. Now, you may say that most programs out there are non metro, which means they run on the classic desktop. But that scenario only holds true at this point in time. With Microsoft being all bull headed with Metro, more and more apps will be Metro exclusive, making the classic desktop redundant.

So you see? Metro is very limited. It is fine for some, but not everyone. With the old Start Menu way, everyone was happy. Also, almost no one is asking them to ditch Metro completely. We are asking for choice. Keep Metro, but also provide the option to easily and completely disable it.

Microsoft is being really stupid and arrogant about this whole Metro business especially considering their size and market share.

Nothing in Windows 8 will prevent you from running as many applications as you want in exactly the same way as you currently do in Windows 7.

[Mazhar]

No need of Start Button in Windows 8, even (almost) in Windows 7.

[Mazhar]

• Start>All Programs>Administrative Tools
  
• Start>All Programs>ProgramX
  
• Start>Settings>Control Panel
  
• Start>Settings>Network Connections
  
• Start>Documents
  

No need of Start Button to access these. You can pin them to jumplists in Windows 7 and in Windows 8, you can pin anything on Start Screen.

[PGHammer]

It's about time they all upgraded to at least dual-core PC's. For those people, 2005 called and wants it's single core junk back!

Absolute total and utter bullcrap. My PC runs on a Core2Quad CPU. Not the latest tech, but guess what ... It's a standard desktop.

I also have a second PC downstairs hooked up to the TV as a media center system. Guess what ... that's a desktop too.

I do have a laptop ... but it's an 10 year old Pentium III based Dell!

I have a Core 2 Quad (Q6600) as well as my standard desktop - it's running the Consumer Preview just fine - and that is with a G41 chipset and AMD HD5450-based discrete graphics (both more commonplace to CSM (G41 chipset) or portable (HD5450) usage). What folks seem to forget about G41 is that it was perfectly capable of swallowing *any* of the various Core2 derived LGA775 CPUs - from the seldom-seen Core 2 Solo, Celeron DC and Pentium DC through even the ridiculous-end Core2Extreme QX6xxx/9xxx - what got it all the brickbattage was abysmal RAM capacity (two DIMM slots mean a mere 4 GB DDR2 or 8 GB DDR3 ceiling) and it being over-clock-hostile.

Mom's desktop (which the Q6600 will replace when I move to i5-K) is a Prescott-based P4 running (don't faint) 7 Ultimate x64. Yes - quite a few Prescotts at the end of that CPU's life are x64; therefore quite capable of running x64 iterations of Windows. Her laptop is a P4 Northwood-based Gateway Solo running XP Pro - however, it only has 1 GB of RAM. Only the laptop as it stands is utterly incapable of running even the Consumer Preview - however, that is due to RAM issues - not anything else.

[Mike Frett]

Honestly, I don't understand people anymore. Why on Earth someone would rather have a clumsy, full-screen menu on a desktop is beyond me. Rather than a clean, minimal and efficient location right in the corner that's easy to access and not in your way. Human beings are way past the point of saving imho, you people can do whatever the hell you want, just stay out of my way with this ignorance.

[chrisj1968]

microsoft hates me! :cry: :p I want my start button. I'm used to it. I need it. is there any real logical reason NOT to have it? have the metro/ classical UI as a choice of the user and that can be changed should the user desire to? to me, MS just in this case seems to be taking the personality of the os away and making the OS less personable. I usually adapt to change pretty well but, not this time.

[BeerFan]

Why on Earth someone would rather have a clumsy, full-screen menu on a desktop is beyond me. Rather than a clean, minimal and efficient location right in the corner that's easy to access and not in your way.

Agreed 100%. I fully understand that I can manually pin whatever apps I want to the Start Screen, and create and name groups there too. But in my opinion, (and many others as voiced in this thread and others), this is a much less efficient, much more cluttered way of accessing programs. To me, the Start Screen looks like you took the nicely organized, compact, efficient Start Menu and barfed it all up on a single screen. Plus, the ability to customize the Start Menu options and especially the Recent Programs list are going to be things that I really miss.

For a Desktop user, the Windows 7 style Start Menu maintains a unified experience - everything is accessible from right there. The Start Screen (and the Charms bar as well) forces a Desktop user to switch to a different set of screens just to find and start another program, then throws them back to the desktop again to actually use the program, thereby moving in the opposite direction of a unified experience.

So, to answer the original question, i need the Start Menu to maintain my own sanity :p I'm not resistant to change. I'm just resistant to change that makes me work harder (albeit only slightly) to achieve the same goal.

[chrisj1968]

In my opinion, windows 8 based just on that fact of the metro UI will be another Vista OS. people will NOT like it

[remixedcat]

I use the start menu to cut down on the desktop and taskbar clutter.

[Buttus]

I like the start button because when my mother or father calls me, because they can't find their game or whatever, i tell them to click 'start', 'all programs' and then just look alphabetically down the list for what they want

or does metro put the icons alphabetically so you can just scroll 3, 4, 5+ pages to the left and right to find stuff?