When Windows 8 was just starting to make waves, one of the things that caught many people off guard was the fact that the Start button was gone. Not hidden, not moved, but removed completely. With Windows 8’s move to Metro as an app launcher, there was deemed to be no need for a Start button. The Internet, nay the world disagreed.
Fast forward to Windows 8.1 and the Start button is back. While this may have led to much dancing in the streets and the kind of unbridled joy that is usually reserved for miracles, Microsoft managed to fall short by not quite getting what people wanted. Yes, that Start button is all well and good, but when all that button does is kick people into that same Metro interface that they were already complaining about, it’s not so much a fix as a bodge job.
But fear not, for the intrepid Start button masher may well be set to spy some light at the end of the long, dark tunnel they would call Windows 8. According to claims coming out of Microsoft follower and know-it-all of all things Redmond, Paul Thurrott, Microsoft could be working to bring the Start menu back to Windows soon.
Speaking about the rumored ‘Threshold’ version of Windows, or Windows 8.2 as we would prefer to call it, that will eventually replace Windows 8/8.1, Thurrott said that the Start menu may be about to make a triumphant return to the platform for those machines running the right version of Threshold. See, the word on the street is that while Threshold, Windows 8.2, whatever we end up calling it will have the same inner workings no matter what version you buy, that unification won’t spread to the interface you use. According to Thurrott, depending on which SKU you plump for, you may or may not see that Start menu once more.
So the claim is a simple one; those versions of Windows running on touch-based hardware would no doubt feature a Metro-inspired interface, with the Desktop quite possibly gone forever. Those with more traditional computers, and possibly the enterprise, would get a Desktop complete with Start button and Start menu instead. Simple, right?
Well, this is Microsoft after all, so expect Ultimate, Super Ultimate, Enterprise and Super Mega Special Enterprise Edition variants on top of all that, too.
(Source: WinSuperSite)
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