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I believe this was defaulted to Nothing gets pinned automatically. The reason for this was that some programs (many older ones) would pin the executable, a shortcut to the author's webpage, two help files in different formats, the readme file, a PDF Get Started guide, etc, etc. After a fresh install and getting all your programs loaded, the Start screen would be a mile long.

I agree that the option would be nice, but I don't think Microsoft yet has a mechanism where they can enforce an installer to pin the "right" shortcuts without all the junk.

Is it really that different to the option that pins the correct shortcut to the desktop though? This has been done for years.
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Is it really that different to the option that pins the correct shortcut to the desktop though? This has been done for years.

I think the matter of what gets pinned to the Start menu or desktop has always been in the hands of the developers rather than Microsoft. I guess the latter disabled Start screen pinning entirely because the vast majority of installers (even some from Microsoft) will dump more than the necessary executable shortcut onto the Start screen/menu. They should probably expose some way of pinning to the Start screen exclusively - maybe just make another folder for new installers to dump an executable link. Then again, there's no reason why that wouldn't be abused any more than installers that dump unnecessary icons on the desktop either.

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Drag it with your mouse to the opposite edge of the screen - just like you would in Windows 7. Trust me, it'll snap.  Start Screen is hiding apps, just like the Start Menu appears over everything else on the desktop - that's what they were designed to do. If you want to go back to where you were, just hit the start button again.

 

This works, but its a real pain vs windows that appear where I want them, or indeed on top of other windows pretty much automatically, or just by dragging them to where I want them, this has been true since Windows 3.1 and is considerably more intuitive than modern ui in its current form. As a person who has a minimum of 15 or 16 apps open at a time, and often over 30 on 2x 27" layout, I find I use metro to be little other than a glorified app launcher, not unlike launchpad on OSX. Something I have little use for since it steals an entire screens focus, not much good if I'm watching a video and want to open another app at the same time. I'm a big fan of progress but I'm sorry I find it near impossible to justify the current design of modern UI. I love windows 8.1, but Modern UI is not part of that love. I dread to think what will happen to Windows over the next few years, maybe I'll go Linux if enough apps are ported over since at least then I have a real choice over the UI I use.

 

As for solutions for MS so I don't end this post on a downer. All this could of been resolved by a simple choice in the installer, to use Desktop Mode (essentially Windows 7 but with the Windows 8 UI and other behind the scenes improvements including DX 11.2, with the ability to run Metro apps off the start menu on the desktop, or since they are just html5, why not inside a browser) or Modern Mode (Basically Windows 8 as it is)

 

I've been reading this topic now for 11 pages, and its slowly becoming yet another metro vs classic thread. I've left my 2 cents yet again, however I'm starting to think we have enough of these threads already. 

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Older Win32 desktop installers don't know about the start screen, it's like a isolated section of the OS that they can't pin to.  MS will have to update it's own MSI to allow for the option to pin Win32 apps to the start screen but till then you'll have to do it manually.  In 8.0 things were pinned to the start screen by default but people didn't want it, just shows that you can't please everyone really.  

 

We could get some sort of option for Store apps, it would ask if you want things you install to be automatically pinned to the start screen as well,  placed in PC Settings or the Store app settings.

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Older Win32 desktop installers don't know about the start screen, it's like a isolated section of the OS that they can't pin to.  MS will have to update it's own MSI to allow for the option to pin Win32 apps to the start screen but till then you'll have to do it manually.  In 8.0 things were pinned to the start screen by default but people didn't want it, just shows that you can't please everyone really.  

 

We could get some sort of option for Store apps, it would ask if you want things you install to be automatically pinned to the start screen as well,  placed in PC Settings or the Store app settings.

 

This isn't about pleasing or not pleasing users. This was a blatant and inexcusable oversight by Microsoft. They knew this would happen when the dominant environment (W32) ran their own installer. It's thinking it's installing to the Start Menu where all the icons aren't a cluttered mess and rarely seen. it's good they addressed this. And yes, they need to update MSI.

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Yes this made it a bit more tolerable in 8.1 but do prefer that programs should be made as part of the start screen and I should be able to decide what isn't there vs Microsoft deciding what is there.

sc302 - the very reason I'm glad it is NOT the case is due to what it created in the Start menu (which users then have to manage) - the Start menu has a nasty tendency to get cluttered.  Thanks to the AppScreen (and the constraints Microsoft itself has put into the StartScreen layout), the StartScreen is very clutter-resistant - that means there is that much less clutter I have to deal with.  Highest-priority applications are pinnable (to Taskbar or StartScreen or both), while socond-highest priority can be pinned to the StartScreen - lowest-priority applications stay where they should be (on the AppScreen).  And it's MY choice - not that of the developer, or Microsoft.  I'd rather not create extra work managing clutter.

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This isn't about pleasing or not pleasing users. This was a blatant and inexcusable oversight by Microsoft. They knew this would happen when the dominant environment (W32) ran their own installer. It's thinking it's installing to the Start Menu where all the icons aren't a cluttered mess and rarely seen. it's good they addressed this. And yes, they need to update MSI.

Have you seen what happens to the Start menu when installing a suite with a lot of shortcuts?  The most blatant example is older versions of Microsoft Office (2003 or older) - however, collections of games are (or can be) just as bad when it comes to the desktop - GlobalStar Software has collections of the classic Win32 PopCap games that clutter up both desktop AND Start menu (in Windows 7 and earlier).  Desktop clutter can be easily dealt with (thanks to utility software such as Stardock's Fences) - however, Start menu clutter requires the user to get busy and do scutwork managing it.  While there are folks that don't mind the scutwork that is clutter management, I have more important things to do than to manage clutter.

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Older Win32 desktop installers don't know about the start screen, it's like a isolated section of the OS that they can't pin to.  MS will have to update it's own MSI to allow for the option to pin Win32 apps to the start screen but till then you'll have to do it manually.  In 8.0 things were pinned to the start screen by default but people didn't want it, just shows that you can't please everyone really.  

 

We could get some sort of option for Store apps, it would ask if you want things you install to be automatically pinned to the start screen as well,  placed in PC Settings or the Store app settings.

Precisely - if anything, I'd much rather that MSI remain unchanged - let it be the user's choice.  Clutter management is a pain in the rear, and I'd rather not have to deal with managing it - with things as they are currently, I need not bother (except MAYBE on the desktop, which can still be dealt with on and application by application (or suite by suite) basis, using the installer's own settings).

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I think the matter of what gets pinned to the Start menu or desktop has always been in the hands of the developers rather than Microsoft. I guess the latter disabled Start screen pinning entirely because the vast majority of installers (even some from Microsoft) will dump more than the necessary executable shortcut onto the Start screen/menu. They should probably expose some way of pinning to the Start screen exclusively - maybe just make another folder for new installers to dump an executable link. Then again, there's no reason why that wouldn't be abused any more than installers that dump unnecessary icons on the desktop either.

zhangm - that is precisely the reason why the Start menu gets cluttered - and why I'm actually glad to see it gone.  A cluttered Start menu does indeed take focus away - which then leads a a crapton of scutwork managing/dealing with that clutter - time that can (and should) be spent actually getting real work done, as opposed to the fiddlework involved in managing clutter.  Worse, to manage Start menu clutter, you are required to go into the groups on an individual basis (via Explorer) - that is a massive time-sucker.  No, thank you.

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This isn't about pleasing or not pleasing users. This was a blatant and inexcusable oversight by Microsoft. They knew this would happen when the dominant environment (W32) ran their own installer. It's thinking it's installing to the Start Menu where all the icons aren't a cluttered mess and rarely seen. it's good they addressed this. And yes, they need to update MSI.

Untrue, MorganX - have you seen the Start menu after a few software suites (or applications) that install a ton of shortcuts?  Microsoft Office is bad enough - Nero is even worse. MorganX, you work in a corporate/government setting (an enterprise), don't you?  How are productivity suites (such as not only Microsoft Office, but Photoshop, or the far larger Adobe Creative Suite) handled - are they pre-installed on the drive image, or are they installed individually?  If the former, then the individual user has to fine-tune the settings how they want, and seldom do two users want the same settings, even on the Start menu - the latter is, unfortunately, not much better.  Either way, the Start menu invariably WILL get cluttered.

 

With StartScreen/AppScreen, the StartScreen can't get cluttered, because nothing goes there by default (not even Office applications).  You can add applications to the StartScreen from the AppScreen (or the Taskbar - or both) via pinning - however, you as the user have to make that decision yourself - the developer/publisher/Microsoft can't - and shouldn't - do it for you. It's the users that give in to "shortcutitis" that create desktop clutter (or even Taskbar clutter - have you seen a Taskbar in Windows 7 that is chockablock with pinned applications?) - I'd much rather not make my workload worse by saddling myself with scutwork managing menu clutter.

 

I have Chrome, Word and Outlook pinned to the Taskbar - that's it.  Because I have Word and Outlook pinned to the Taskbar, neither is pinned to the StartScreen.  My default mail account (Windows Mail) is also connected to Outlook, if there is a priority mail item that comes in, when Mail fires up a "toast" popup about it, I click the Outlook button on my Taskbar.

 

You can't always count on having slow parts of the day that you can devote to scutwork such as clutter management - sometimes, the slow period doesn't come.  Therefore, in my opinion, it's better not having the clutter to manage in the first place.

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Untrue, MorganX - have you seen the Start menu after a few software suites (or applications) that install a ton of shortcuts?  Microsoft Office is bad enough - Nero is even worse. MorganX, you work in a corporate/government setting (an enterprise), don't you?  How are productivity suites (such as not only Microsoft Office, but Photoshop, or the far larger Adobe Creative Suite) handled - are they pre-installed on the drive image, or are they installed individually?  If the former, then the individual user has to fine-tune the settings how they want, and seldom do two users want the same settings, even on the Start menu - the latter is, unfortunately, not much better.  Either way, the Start menu invariably WILL get cluttered.

 

As you know Office has a customization tool to customize what goes on the Start Menu and where it goes. Entire enterprises typically don't use Adobe CS and it is generally installed ad hoc. I have had a great deal of experience with both and neither dump icons on the root of the Start Menu unlike the Start Page.

 

If fact most apps give the option of installing a desktop menu, quick start shortcut, and Start Menu folder. It's been so long since I saw an app dump everything in the root of the Start Menu I can't tell you when or what it was. Apparently pop games does.

 

As long as an app installs it's shortcuts into a parent folder on the Start Menu, there is no real clutter. What it looks like inside that folder, or flyout on the Start Menu, may be a different story. However, Adobe CS did make a mess of the Start Page, prior to 8.1.

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sc302 - the very reason I'm glad it is NOT the case is due to what it created in the Start menu (which users then have to manage) - the Start menu has a nasty tendency to get cluttered.  Thanks to the AppScreen (and the constraints Microsoft itself has put into the StartScreen layout), the StartScreen is very clutter-resistant - that means there is that much less clutter I have to deal with.  Highest-priority applications are pinnable (to Taskbar or StartScreen or both), while socond-highest priority can be pinned to the StartScreen - lowest-priority applications stay where they should be (on the AppScreen).  And it's MY choice - not that of the developer, or Microsoft.  I'd rather not create extra work managing clutter.

You must be one of those users that installs everything they find on the internet on their computers and one of the ones I spend hours removing viruses from. I install what I need on my computers. after I haven't played a game in 6 months I uninstall it. I don't install coupon printers, toolbars, or other useless garbage on my computers. My start menu never scrolled down when the full start menu was visible. Learn some self control ;)

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I have over 200gb of games installed, I have Office, Visual Studio and Adobe Suite installed, I have no crap whatsoever in my start menu, and this is with no real modification to its layout (apart from to add a shortcut to Putty)

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Are they all installed, or waiting to be installed?  Visual Studio no longer installs a mishmash of shortcuts, and Office 2010 and 2013 are MUCH better behaved - especially compared to Office 2003; even better, since Office 2000, they install ZERO desktop shortcuts whatever (even Office 2000 only created a desktop shortcut for Outlook; however, that step back was all those shortcuts in the Start menu).  Still for every better behaved suite, there are one (or more) that go crazy with shortcuts.  Then there are those suites that have not just a single group for the suite, but subgroups as well - in fact, Visual Studio and Adobe Creative Suite were notorious for this until recently (so was Nero).  Fortunately, Visual Studio got the hint and kiboshed the submenus - still, I have no desire OR use for the Start menu for the reasons I've stated before.

 

You must be one of those users that installs everything they find on the internet on their computers and one of the ones I spend hours removing viruses from. I install what I need on my computers. after I haven't played a game in 6 months I uninstall it. I don't install coupon printers, toolbars, or other useless garbage on my computers. My start menu never scrolled down when the full start menu was visible. Learn some self control ;)

No, I don't - I LOATHE most toolbars (in fact, I have just one - the Yahoo toolbar).  And I said nothing about toolbars (why would ANY toolbar install a shortcut on the Start menu?) - I was referring to the Start menu.  And the very fact that you are so reliant on the Start menu means that it has your attention - how much do you use the keyboard outside of entering text?  If you use your pointing device more than your keyboard, that is a pointing-device bias - just as any desktop environment that prefers touch to pointing devices is biased in favor of touch (such as Android or iOS - especially Android, which is the only one of the two that can run in a virtual machine).  While ModernUI supports touch better, if anything, it has a decided LACK of bias - it strikes me as the least-biased GUI available on any platform.

 

How do you cope when your pointing device fails - for any reason?

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I use my keyboard to enter text in cli and to bring up control panel items. I also use start+key to bring up certain items. The start menu wasn't a mess ever for me.

I bring up toolbars simply for the fact that people who have loaded start menus have loaded toolbars, to the point they can't see the internet page they are on.

Not everyone's start menu is a mess. My desktop is more of a mess than my start menu. I have to move things out to folders monthly or every inch of my desktop would be covered in a few months.

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I use my keyboard to enter text in cli and to bring up control panel items. I also use start+key to bring up certain items. The start menu wasn't a mess ever for me.

I bring up toolbars simply for the fact that people who have loaded start menus have loaded toolbars, to the point they can't see the internet page they are on.

Not everyone's start menu is a mess. My desktop is more of a mess than my start menu. I have to move things out to folders monthly or every inch of my desktop would be covered in a few months.

Yikes. Why do that when you can just search for the CP items directly? :S

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It is faster to do a winkey+r and whatever command, I then don't have to worry about the speed of the computer or search to be able to find out launch the item. I have been on many Windows computers that it would take 30 seconds to find the programs control panel item. Besides a lot of the time it is less characters I have to type to launch them.

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Are they all installed, or waiting to be installed?  Visual Studio no longer installs a mishmash of shortcuts, and Office 2010 and 2013 are MUCH better behaved - especially compared to Office 2003; even better, since Office 2000, they install ZERO desktop shortcuts whatever (even Office 2000 only created a desktop shortcut for Outlook; however, that step back was all those shortcuts in the Start menu).  Still for every better behaved suite, there are one (or more) that go crazy with shortcuts.  Then there are those suites that have not just a single group for the suite, but subgroups as well - in fact, Visual Studio and Adobe Creative Suite were notorious for this until recently (so was Nero).  Fortunately, Visual Studio got the hint and kiboshed the submenus - still, I have no desire OR use for the Start menu for the reasons I've stated before.

 

 

They are all installed, and I don't remember having many issues when  I had office 2000 and visual studio 6 installed...

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I use my keyboard to enter text in cli and to bring up control panel items. I also use start+key to bring up certain items. The start menu wasn't a mess ever for me.

I bring up toolbars simply for the fact that people who have loaded start menus have loaded toolbars, to the point they can't see the internet page they are on.

Not everyone's start menu is a mess. My desktop is more of a mess than my start menu. I have to move things out to folders monthly or every inch of my desktop would be covered in a few months.

Then you are an exception - most of my users that I support are still running 7 or earlier, which means I see a LOT of messy Start menus.  Combine that with a decided bias in the Start menu's favor, why would it be surprising that I have such a loathing for the Start menu?  Using the Windows logo key (and the Runbox) are two of my biggest workarounds - and why I had a seamless adjustment to the Start menu's banishment.  What got me really horked off is that both are old, and go back to not merely Windows NT, but Windows 3.x/NT 3.x - and even most power users have become reliant on the Start menu.  When a desktop environment because a battlefield of pointing device vs. keyboard - and the pointing device is winning - then there is a definite problem.  As I have said before, it's bigger than Windows - look at desktop environments outside of Windows - such as Linux distributions and UNIX; even there, the pointing device is becoming de rigeur.

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Maybe that is where I differ, I am not a standard user. My job title is network engineer. I try not to deal with user desktops any more, however, I do create and lock down the environment that my users have access to.

Even still, my home computers are very clean from my wife's to my kids. The start screen never really bothered me much but trying to explain how to get to an application isn't the easiest over the phone without remote access. To a standard user, it isn't there or was never installed.

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Maybe that is where I differ, I am not a standard user. My job title is network engineer. I try not to deal with user desktops any more, however, I do create and lock down the environment that my users have access to.

Even still, my home computers are very clean from my wife's to my kids. The start screen never really bothered me much but trying to explain how to get to an application isn't the easiest over the phone without remote access. To a standard user, it isn't there or was never installed.

That is likely it.

 

I'm not a standard user, either - in fact, I don't think I've ever been one.  However, that is likely due to my atypical background - I started in mainframe computing and am mostly self-taught - I didn't get my first technical certification (outside of CNA) until 2000.  However, the majority of my background has been in supporting standard users - even going back to my mainframe/early PC days.  I understand (and actually "get") their reticence and reluctance - however, just because I understand it doesn't mean that I share it.  And the very fact that you have to lock down desktops is a rather telling commentary on the sorry state of standard users - worse than that, it seems like more and more average people are proud of their ignorance in any and all aspects of using technology (from computers to tablets to smartphones to more intelligent TVs - ad infinitum).  It's enough to drive me to drink Presidential Screwdrivers.

 

(The Presidential Screwdriver is based on the "standard" Screwdriver formula of vodka and a citrus juice, except the swap is Ciroc Coconut Infused Vodka  - as opposed to Seagram's or Stoli or SKYY - and a 1/3 each mix of orange/grapefruit/pineapple juice instead of either orange or grapefruit juice alone.)

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