The return of the Start menu in future Windows 8.1 update: Thoughts?

[francescob]

Oh noas! They knew this would have happened back in 1995!

 

[Rickkins]

I disagree.   Everyone I talk to is seriously reconsidering "cloud storage" in light of everything disclosed by Snowden, etc.  At this point businesses especially are probably looking at how fast they can reverse course and get control of their data back because the reality is that the only truly secure storage IS local storage.

Absolutely. One would have to be completely out of his/her mind to rely on the cloud. It's just another load of rubbish that has been sold to a certain section of computing society that simply believes everything that ms corpco says, without thinking it thru for them selves. The myriad of potential issues are so immense that it boggles the mind how thinking individuals could miss them.

 

I realize that this might be hard to understand... but ms does NOT have YOUR best interests at heart... they have their OWN.

[Dashel]

PG, you can keep droning on, but Metro is still crap with a keyboard.  How such a 'fan' misses this confounds me.  Toss in no voice, mobile, or controller support (thanks XBone) and you don't have anything close to UX neutral.

[Dot Matrix]

PG, you can keep droning on, but Metro is still crap with a keyboard.  How such a 'fan' misses this confounds me.  Toss in no voice, mobile, or controller support (thanks XBone) and you don't have anything close to UX neutral.

Really? Then how did I just type an email in the mail app? I also just posted a Tweet to Twitter through Tweetium.... So, what do you mean? Please elaborate, because the keyboard works just the same as it does on the old desktop.  

[neo158]

As long as it's optional then I don't care, if it's forced on me then hello Linux. It's bad enough that Update 1 screwed my settings over upon install by forcing me to return to the desktop after using a modern UI app, but forcing a decade old UI paradigm on me is a step too far, and don't even get me started on that stupid title bar in modern UI apps with no way to turn it off. Why not bring back XP and IE6 while their at it!!!!

 

This is a regression simply because of luddites who can't be bothered to learn a new way of doing things, if that upsets you then tough!!!

[Ian W]

This is a regression simply because of luddites who can't be bothered to learn a new way of doing things, if that upsets you then tough!!!

The Start screen, while offering many improvements to the Start menu, was also a regression in a few ways.

As for the Start menu, how is it a regression if you don't have to use it? If they were replacing the Start screen with the menu, then I would not be happy, but everything revealed so far suggests that the menu will be optional.

It'd be nice if you'd lose the attitude.

[PGHammer]

PG, you can keep droning on, but Metro is still crap with a keyboard.  How such a 'fan' misses this confounds me.  Toss in no voice, mobile, or controller support (thanks XBone) and you don't have anything close to UX neutral.

Why is it crap with a keyboard - and in what applications?  If an application is crap with a keyboard, it's badly designed - and ModernUI applications - not games - are not alone in committing THAT sin.  (For example, how many of you are pointing-device-driven BECAUSE all too many of your applications are also pointing-device-driven for the most part?)  No voice support is again application-specific - Windows 8 actually DOES support voice control (there's an applet in Control Panel for it) - why are applications that will leverage it missing?  (Yes - it's the same question that has been asked with regards to Kinect - and voice-control has been at least possible with Windows far longer; I pointed out that it's been available via third parties going back to Windows 3.x - in fact, Dragon still provides that third-party support today.)

[PGHammer]

Absolutely. One would have to be completely out of his/her mind to rely on the cloud. It's just another load of rubbish that has been sold to a certain section of computing society that simply believes everything that ms corpco says, without thinking it thru for them selves. The myriad of potential issues are so immense that it boggles the mind how thinking individuals could miss them.

 

I realize that this might be hard to understand... but ms does NOT have YOUR best interests at heart... they have their OWN.

Rickkins - again, you are referring largely to employees using personal clouds to store business data.  That IS a bad idea, and that is also why the United States government has disallowed the use of personal storage devices in classified work spaces.  (That is actually both law AND several regulations - and predates Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA.)  However, all too often, convenience trumps law - and you wind up with a Bradley Manning situation - or worse, Johnathan Pollard.  NSA simply took advantage of that fact.  (In other words, it's not new, not news, and has, in fact, largely been public knowledge.)

[Dashel]

If an application is crap with a keyboard, it's badly designed.

Windows 8 actually DOES support voice control

 

Then 90% of Modern apps are then badly designed and MS has completely failed to remind them and their own devs.  They aren't navigable with the keyboard alone. For all your bitching about how the Desktop isn't friendly to the keyboard.  Metro is even more reliant on a blah blah blah pointing device (precise mouse or coarse touch).  You can play the 'blame the app' game, but that only works in open ecosystems.  Living in the walled garden that no one is maintaining.  Loverly.

 

Win8's voice support isn't a shadow of what is on Xbone or with Cortana.  Which is arguably willful crippling of Win8 as a HTPC.

[PGHammer]

Then 90% of Modern apps are then badly designed and MS has completely failed to remind them and their own devs.  They aren't navigable with the keyboard alone. For all your bitching about how the Desktop isn't friendly to the keyboard.  Metro is even more reliant on a blah blah blah pointing device (precise mouse or coarse touch).  You can play the 'blame the app' game, but that only works in open ecosystems.  Living in the walled garden that no one is maintaining.  Loverly.

 

Win8's voice support isn't a shadow of what is on Xbone or with Cortana.  Which is arguably willful crippling of Win8 as a HTPC.

Agreed - voice-control IS horribly under-utilized, and not just in ModernUI, either.

However, I'm not excusing Win32/Win64 for bad application design, either - as much as you would like to think so.

What I am saying is that bad application design - regardless of API - is a major problem.  However, it is more easily "forgiven" in Win32 because it remains the majority API, and the design flaws in the applications reflect the biases of the majority of the API's userbase.  We accept flaws in Win32/Win64 that we treat with scorn in Modern - why?

I have not said that ModernUI applications are flawless - that is something I have never said.  My issue with the pointing-device-centric (from an API standpoint) is that they are more accepting of flaws in Win32/Win64 than they are in ModernUI, simply because the older API "kisses up" to their biases.  That shouldn't be tolerated, either.

I have not hesitated to whack ModernUI applications for faults - if you have followed my posts, you would see that.

However, how many of you will criticize a Win32 application for those same faults - for which there is far less excuse?

[Rickkins]

Rickkins - again, you are referring largely to employees using personal clouds to store business data.  That IS a bad idea, and that is also why the United States government has disallowed the use of personal storage devices in classified work spaces.  (That is actually both law AND several regulations - and predates Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA.)  However, all too often, convenience trumps law - and you wind up with a Bradley Manning situation - or worse, Johnathan Pollard.  NSA simply took advantage of that fact.  (In other words, it's not new, not news, and has, in fact, largely been public knowledge.)

I doubt anyone else could have derived that from what I posted.

 

For the record, I was referring to anyone, and everyone.

[PGHammer]

The update being mandatory is because of the API changes they've made, it's needed, specially for universal apps and a unified app store coming later.

 

Lots of you are going back and forth rehashing the same arguments, in the end it doesn't matter because here's the choice everyone wanted.    Use the new menu, or don't, or load up some old 3rd party menu still if you feel like it, it matters little at this point.  The desktop was never going away, it wasn't even depreciated, some make it sound like they gutted things out of the desktop which never happened.   Metro is also here to stay, or in this case WINRT, store apps are becoming part of the desktop and to that end I expect more changes to the desktop to support them while also brining WINRT features to older Win32 WPF apps, like contracts.

 

Don't be surprised if after we get the new menu they then work on a new taskbar as well.  Also if they stick to the trend of sharing things between Windows and WP, when they bring over the Action Center that the old systray gets the boot as well.   I also expect to see the charms in the new menu as well, from the little concept glimpse at the BUILD keynote they did they weren't there but I have a feeling they will be in the final version.  Or if not in the menu then some way to bring them up next to the app window and not in the corner. 

 

Either way, nothing is going away, and the two things are coming closer together now.

 

The update being mandatory is because of the API changes they've made, it's needed, specially for universal apps and a unified app store coming later.

 

Lots of you are going back and forth rehashing the same arguments, in the end it doesn't matter because here's the choice everyone wanted.    Use the new menu, or don't, or load up some old 3rd party menu still if you feel like it, it matters little at this point.  The desktop was never going away, it wasn't even depreciated, some make it sound like they gutted things out of the desktop which never happened.   Metro is also here to stay, or in this case WINRT, store apps are becoming part of the desktop and to that end I expect more changes to the desktop to support them while also brining WINRT features to older Win32 WPF apps, like contracts.

 

Don't be surprised if after we get the new menu they then work on a new taskbar as well.  Also if they stick to the trend of sharing things between Windows and WP, when they bring over the Action Center that the old systray gets the boot as well.   I also expect to see the charms in the new menu as well, from the little concept glimpse at the BUILD keynote they did they weren't there but I have a feeling they will be in the final version.  Or if not in the menu then some way to bring them up next to the app window and not in the corner. 

 

Either way, nothing is going away, and the two things are coming closer together now.

The Runbox dates back to (believe it or not) Windows 3.x - what is different now is that it has a lot more teeth.

 

Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, I can just type the name of an application (or even the name of a FILE) and the application will launch (or, if it's a file name, it will launch with the associated application - such as Word for documents if Word is installed).  How many of us would have KILLED for this in even XP - which promised exactly this sort of capability with the addition of Windows Search 4.0?

 

Windows 7 (not 8) delivered it - but how well did any of us use it in even 7?

 

I will wager that the reason why very few folks used it was due to *habit* - we got ingrained in using the Start menu,  not investigating whether there was an alternative available.  (Heck, *I* had no idea that 7 could do it until using the Windows 8 Developer Preview - and I found myself wondering if I could avoid the Start menu on my mom's Windows 7 desktop.)  That's right, I hate the Start menu THAT much that, even in Windows 7, I try real hard to avoid it.

I don't care about HOW it works - what matters is that it does, and without pain or even the slightest bit of agony.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I just found this review someone posted on Amazon, it cracked me up. The review was posted on  May 26, 2014.

 

Before saying he restores his computer every 6 to 12 months he probably shouldn't have told everyone he was a "Computer Technician"

[Draconian Guppy]

I just found this review someone posted on Amazon, it cracked me up. The review was posted on  May 26, 2014.

 

Before he said he restored his computer every 6 to 12 months he probably shouldn't have told everyone he was a "Computer Technician"

lol HP spokes person?

[DConnell Member]

lol HP spokes person?

 

Nah, Micro Center or Best Buy technician.

[sc302 Veteran]

giving best buy and micro center techs too much credit.  their magic disk tells them what to do...it is kind of like the magic 8 ball.  but it is more like the magic conch. 

[PGHammer]

Nah, Micro Center or Best Buy technician.

Likely Beast Buy technician - the two MIcroCenters that I shop at (Rockville, MD and Fairfax, VA) don't have techs that think like that. (Also, MicroCenter, like Beast Buy, sells their fair share of HP.)

[PGHammer]

Which Microsoft is indeed trying to do (with OneDrive, Skype, Office, etc.).  However, part of the problem Microsoft itself faces is that even as it does what it can to actually provide examples of how functional equivalency between  Win32 and ModernUI can be possible, the fearmongers are jumping in, saying that this simply illustrates Microsoft's intention of killing the desktop application market.

 

Please - like improved ModernUI applications will kill the desktop market anytime soon.

 

I have stated - repeatedly - that Windows Explorer ties into OneDrive, and right now.  (This is easily provable - go to your OneDrive icon in Windows Explorer (or RTExplorer, if you are running an RT tablet) and open it.  Then drag a file from your local folders that is small enough to fit to a folder in OneDrive.  Once the folders sync (if you are online, they will sync at the speed of your connection), you have just copied a file - to the cloud - without going NEAR ModernUI, or a third-party application.)  If you are used to Explorer as file-management application (and I am) that is one monstrous advantage that OneDrive Explorer has to overcome.  OneDrive Explorer must be equal to File Explorer - in terms of functionality - to stand any chance of replacing it.  It's the same bar that applies to any ModernUI application - in that sense, I'm not treating Microsoft any different from any other application developer.  However, this same feature will require third-party cloud providers to enable their cloud-storage services to plug into File Explorer and/or OneDrive Explorer; IS there a common API for cloud-storage providers in the ModernUI API system?  If there IS a common API, it's on third parties - Google, MEGA, etc. - to leverage it.  If NOT, it behooves Microsoft and the rest of the stakeholders to create one.

 

This one feature is something that Win32 has not had since the abortive "Nashville/Memphis" of Windows 9x - the few third-party hacks since have not been as elegant as how OneDrive ties into File Explorer.  (In fact, its so elegant it is nearly invisible.)  It's something that any Windows 8+ user can use, if they use OneDrive - however, it can't be unique to OneDrive.

 

And don't assume that I want the feature to be desktop-exclusive - I definitely do NOT.  I don't expect to always be using a desktop-only computer or device.  At some point, I WILL want that feature to be found in ModernUI - if for no other reason than my not always being at my desktop computer.  That may well be the REAL rub - how many of those pointing-device-centric users are ALWAYS at a desktop-formfactor computer?  (They may run 7 at home, but 7, Vista, or XP at work.  Windows 8+ is too different from what they run at work - I get that much.)  Android has a file-navigation problem - so does iOS.  They have lots of casual games and apps - however, both blow when it comes to file navigation, let alone file management.  RT, for all its faults, doesn't blow in that area - it has the same file-navigation and management capabilities as Windows 8+ - and by design.  That is the REAL choice for users - what is more important?

 

Which Microsoft is indeed trying to do (with OneDrive, Skype, Office, etc.).  However, part of the problem Microsoft itself faces is that even as it does what it can to actually provide examples of how functional equivalency between  Win32 and ModernUI can be possible, the fearmongers are jumping in, saying that this simply illustrates Microsoft's intention of killing the desktop application market.

 

Please - like improved ModernUI applications will kill the desktop market anytime soon.

 

I have stated - repeatedly - that Windows Explorer ties into OneDrive, and right now.  (This is easily provable - go to your OneDrive icon in Windows Explorer (or RTExplorer, if you are running an RT tablet) and open it.  Then drag a file from your local folders that is small enough to fit to a folder in OneDrive.  Once the folders sync (if you are online, they will sync at the speed of your connection), you have just copied a file - to the cloud - without going NEAR ModernUI, or a third-party application.)  If you are used to Explorer as file-management application (and I am) that is one monstrous advantage that OneDrive Explorer has to overcome.  OneDrive Explorer must be equal to File Explorer - in terms of functionality - to stand any chance of replacing it.  It's the same bar that applies to any ModernUI application - in that sense, I'm not treating Microsoft any different from any other application developer.  However, this same feature will require third-party cloud providers to enable their cloud-storage services to plug into File Explorer and/or OneDrive Explorer; IS there a common API for cloud-storage providers in the ModernUI API system?  If there IS a common API, it's on third parties - Google, MEGA, etc. - to leverage it.  If NOT, it behooves Microsoft and the rest of the stakeholders to create one.

 

This one feature is something that Win32 has not had since the abortive "Nashville/Memphis" of Windows 9x - the few third-party hacks since have not been as elegant as how OneDrive ties into File Explorer.  (In fact, its so elegant it is nearly invisible.)  It's something that any Windows 8+ user can use, if they use OneDrive - however, it can't be unique to OneDrive.

 

And don't assume that I want the feature to be desktop-exclusive - I definitely do NOT.  I don't expect to always be using a desktop-only computer or device.  At some point, I WILL want that feature to be found in ModernUI - if for no other reason than my not always being at my desktop computer.  That may well be the REAL rub - how many of those pointing-device-centric users are ALWAYS at a desktop-formfactor computer?  (They may run 7 at home, but 7, Vista, or XP at work.  Windows 8+ is too different from what they run at work - I get that much.)  Android has a file-navigation problem - so does iOS.  They have lots of casual games and apps - however, both blow when it comes to file navigation, let alone file management.  RT, for all its faults, doesn't blow in that area - it has the same file-navigation and management capabilities as Windows 8+ - and by design.  That is the REAL choice for users - what is more important?

UPDATE - I have yet more data, and NOT from Windows, either.  I installed OneDrive for OS X in my Yosemite drive/partition for testing, and it works in Finder like it does in File Explorer/Windows Explorer.  The differences are OS-specific - OneDrive appears in Finder as as a folder, not a network drive; however, it works the same way.  I hope that OneDrive for iOS works like the OS X or Windows (desktop and Modern) equivalents.

[MorganX]

Absolutely. One would have to be completely out of his/her mind to rely on the cloud. It's just another load of rubbish that has been sold to a certain section of computing society that simply believes everything that ms corpco says, without thinking it thru for them selves. The myriad of potential issues are so immense that it boggles the mind how thinking individuals could miss them.

 

I realize that this might be hard to understand... but ms does NOT have YOUR best interests at heart... they have their OWN.

The cloud, storage and/or servers (which is usually DB Storage)should supplement on-premises environment. I do not see the cloud being a solution for enterprise storage in general. However, it is a fertile environment for application development/hosting particularly to share applications between enterprises with no type of trust between them. Azure has it's potential but again, these are not free services and if the consumer is "on-premises" it's value will most likely be negated by bandwidth. If you're a SOHO, the cloud might actually be a viable solution across the board.

[MorganX]

As long as it's optional then I don't care, if it's forced on me then hello Linux. It's bad enough that Update 1 screwed my settings over upon install by forcing me to return to the desktop after using a modern UI app, but forcing a decade old UI paradigm on me is a step too far, and don't even get me started on that stupid title bar in modern UI apps with no way to turn it off. Why not bring back XP and IE6 while their at it!!!!

 

This is a regression simply because of luddites who can't be bothered to learn a new way of doing things, if that upsets you then tough!!!

#1 I don't believe you. You will not abandon Windows for Linux because of the Start Menu.

#2 I understand you want to move forward, if for no particular advancement, just for the sake of change. Unfortunately, you are blaming users demanding productivity and change for the sake of "improvement" for Microsoft simply not getting it right. I think everyone is ready for change, as much as everyone has been ready for new icons in windows for over a decade. The difference is some want to change for better or worse. While others have things to get done and only want change for the better or improvement.

[Eric Veteran]

Why resurrect stuff from May?

[MorganX]

Why resurrect stuff from May?

It's not closed.

I just read it, seeing Hammer's comments

May isn't that long ago, unless it was May 2013