News Microsoft's Mini Start Menu delayed for Windows Threshold

I know this isn't everyone's view, but I much prefer Win 8 (well 8.1) with Start8 installed...

 

Yeah, I have start8 installed and find Win8 excellent. Its so fast at startup and the multi screen support is a big improvement from 7. Don't ever use the Metro UI though - that thing is useless in every sense of the word.

 

Makes me wonder why they don't do a similar thing as Apple, have a desktop OS and a separate mobile OS, some stuff can be the same or similar or shared between both, just not everything.
I'm sure there are somethings that are better suited to being used on there intended device, or are not needed on the other device, such as the Start Menu

 

I'm getting used to 8.1 now, it's basically made me realise quite how little I used the start menu before, and now I just hit start, type the first few letters, and hit enter. The full screen menu is distracting, but the functionality is basically the same.
The multimonitor support in 8 basically covers what UltraMon does/did.

 

I get on fine with 8.1. But for customers I alway's bung on classic shell. I think it's too late for MS to implement the Start button now with Windows 8. They may aswell use it as a key selling point for Windows 9! They can even do TV ad's with the rolling stones "Start Me Up" song like they did for Windows 95 lol

 

If you use keyboard shortcuts you can also Win+s and type.

 

Or just Win.

 

I only ever use the start menu in Windows 7 to shut down my machine I use Objectdock & windows explorer for everything else in Windows 8.1 I just use windows explorer pinned to my taskbar.

 

Echoing this; I have regularly used programs pinned to taskbar and everything else is Win + type. Start screen is populated with calendar, weather and stocks to use the livetiles as widgets (never open the actual programs!), then all my Steam games pinned with Steam Tile (or Steam launcher, I forget which) purely for aesthetics.

With 8.1 I don't even use the Start screen to shut down or restart, that's right-click "new start button" and select shutdown...

Generally speaking, I have no complaints about 8.1

 

Disagree with that. In Windows 7, if I want to format a drive, I type partition, and hit enter. In Windows 8, for some unknown reason, I type partition, and it stares blankly at me saying "There aren't any programs called 'Partition'". I then have to go and click the "Settings" button or whatever it's called to see the option I wanted in the first place.

I cannot, for the life of me, see how that's an improvement.

 

Yes, they changed somethings to have unintuitive names... like 'create and format hard disk partitions' but if you start typing partition it does come up after the 6th letter. Or you could just right click start and choose disk management.
I personally don't think they should even bother with the small start menu. It makes no real difference. People should just get used to the start screen. It's not as if you are multitasking when starting a program. Either way if it was full screen or a small menu it has focus until you finished. It makes no difference... but with the full screen you don't have nested mess of crap like the old way. If you take the time to organize it (and clean up some of the garbage installers still dump in there which they are not supposed to) the start screen is super nice.

 

Update to 8.1 and that won't be an issue anymore.

 

I don't miss the start menu at all, I never even tried Start8 and similar programs after upgrading to win8. Doubt I'd be using a start menu even if there was one now.

 

You wouldn't have a nested mess of crap if you organised the start menu like you have done with the start screen.

There still is one. It's just Microsoft renamed it the Start Screen, gave it bigger icons that you can poke with a finger, added some flashy icons to the mix, and moved a load of other bits around.
The start screen is nothing more than a full screen version of the start menu on steroids.

 

If it's much the same thing, why are you getting so annoyed about it?

Never mind. Horses for courses, and all that.

 

I'm not annoyed about it Sorry if it came across like that.
In essence the start screen is the same as the start menu IMHO, a place for launching applications, but with a load of extra bells and whistles.

 

My bad. I agree though: same thing, different spin. I quite like the way the Start Screen works but feel that neither it or the Start Menu are perfect. Then again, it's a deceptively hard thing to get right, as most seemingly simple ideas are.

 

To the Start8 guys ? Why do you pay for it, when you can get http://www.classicshell.net/ for free ?

 

I bought it because at the time classic she'll wasn't up to scratch. And it was 5 dollars which isn't a whole lot