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posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday June 04 2014, @11:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the Interface-Resurrection dept.

Mary Jo Foley reports at ZDNet that according to sources who've had good track records on Windows information, Microsoft won't be delivering a new Start Menu for Windows 8 with its coming Windows 8.1 Update 2, after all. "Up until recently, Microsoft was hoping to make a new "Mini" Start Menu part of a second update to Windows 8.1," says Foley. "Windows 8.1 Update 2 was and still is, last I heard slated to arrive in August of this year." Microsoft's operating systems group has decided to hold off on delivering a Microsoft-developed Start Menu until Threshold, the next "major" release of Windows. Threshold, which may or may not ultimately be called Windows 9, is expected to be released in April 2015.

The original Windows 8 interface lacked the Start Menu, a familiar component of previous versions of the operating system, replacing it with the live tile-driven Start screen. Many users didn't like the change, and some PC manufacturers and developers offered ways to bring back versions of the old Start Menu. Microsoft appeared to relent at Build when it unveiled the revised Start Menu, enhanced with Windows Modern UI improvements.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:15PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:15PM (#51304)

    their power and market share is waning in the face of better and cheaper alternatives.

    What "better and cheaper alternatives" are you talking about? Just sticking with older versions of Windows?

    Mac isn't cheaper than Windows by a long shot. Linux is better and cheaper, but no one's using it. Sure, I can find fellow Linux desktop users online, but I've never actually met any in real life with a few very rare exceptions. In fact, it seems like most of the "geeks" who used to be big Linux proponents have switched over to Mac for their desktop OS.

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  • (Score: 1) by NullPtr on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:27PM

    by NullPtr (3786) on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:27PM (#51627) Journal

    Mobile, and just sticking with XP or windows 7. I know very few people (excluding developers here) who've replaced old desktops (that'll never happen). Some have replaced laptops with a cheaper one, or a netbook but most are happy to use a smartphone or a tablet. Certainly from a security point of view it's obviously much safer to do banking, shopping etc on a mobile. I don't know a single mobile user who misses having windows. I don't know any non-technical people who use a mac, either. I've set a few people up with Linux, though, given that it is finally good enough to use on the desktop. Sure, they'll upgrade from the (still perfectly functional) XP when their computer dies, but trying to convince people that their perfectly functional computer needs a new OS at the cost of several hundred pounds and potentially it won't even run on their computer because "it is ending support" ("whatever the hell that means") is a joke when you think about what else you can do with the money (including, but not limited to, buying the best part of a perfectly good replacement tablet).

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 06 2014, @12:27AM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Friday June 06 2014, @12:27AM (#51985) Journal

      My mother isn't at all technical. She's tried everything to get off the desktop -- she's got a Kindle, an old Linux Dell netbook, and most recently an iPad. And guess what? She *still* uses the ancient, 10+ year old Dell desktop. Not for everything, but it's still essential even for her. Primarily for two reasons:

      1) There's not a single app or Linux tool that can handle her investments the way she currently does with MS Money 2000.

      2) There's no way to print from an iPad that she can set up herself. I'm a thousand miles away; she's got an iPad-compatible wireless printer now but it's probably gonna be a few months before I can get down there to set that up for her.

      Of course, you're right that she's just sticking with that ancient XP desktop for now...but the performance on that thing wasn't great when we got it, and it's absolutely abysmal now. Anti-virus software alone makes it damn near unusable, takes five or ten minutes just to launch a web browser. I'm probably gonna have to figure out a way to run MS Money 2000 through Wine or something and set her up with a cheap Linux desktop in another year or two...although actually if I put Linux on it that desktop would probably still be alright. And now I'm wondering why I never did that earlier -- probably because my dad was still using it for his iTunes at the time though, and maybe some IE-only websites -- it's been a while!