
Windows 8′s next victim: Microsoft kills the Start button - ukdm
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/117241-windows-8s-next-victim-microsoft-kills-the-start-button
======
apg
I've tried the initial Windows 8 developer preview, and I have to say it has
been a jarring experience to switch back and forth between Metro and the
"Windows Classic" desktop. The visual experience of Metro vs the Win7 style is
so different that it feels slapdash and disjointed. This Windows 8 was just
the initial developer preview though. I'm sure the next CTP will be worlds
better - and I'm sure it Win8/Metro will be sweet on tablets.

There was a mega post at the build windows blog justifying (rationalizing?)
their decisions. It's interesting reading to slog through. They've certainly
put a lot of resources onto this decision, and it feels like the future of
Windows based desktop PC's is in the balance. It feels like a really risky
bet.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/11/reflecting-
on-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/11/reflecting-on-your-
comments-on-the-start-screen.aspx)

Ideally, MS would add a "Windows 7" mode that I can turn on and use my
computer the way I've been accustomed to. I don't want to be learn more
efficient with swipes/fewer clicks/etc - I've got a good thing going here.
First thing I used to do with XP was switch it to the Windows Classic mode, so
I'm probably not their target user.

FWIW, I also dropped Ubuntu post-Unity (running Debian now) and haven't looked
back. This dog is too old to want to deal with learning any cheese moving
tricks.

~~~
bo1024
> and I'm sure it Win8/Metro will be sweet on tablets

Exactly. The hot trend right now is to throw desktop aesthetics and
performance out the window and just build products for small touchscreens.

Dumb.

~~~
kijin
They will learn that it was a dumb move when corporate customers with hundreds
of thousands of installations refuse to upgrade because the eye candy does
nothing to improve productivity on their (obviously non-touchscreen)
workstations. Coming Soon: Windows 9 Business Edition with the Classic
keyboard-and-mouse UI.

~~~
Luyt
I also hope KDE5 will be more like KDE3 than KDE4.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
As soon as I "experienced" unity I RAN to gnome, screamed in horror, then ran
to KDE and just cried a bit to myself. What the hell is happening to linux?
Ever since the nearing of Steve Jobs' decline & death it's like every amateur
designer in the world's been tyring to take his place.

They're all trying to mimick his vision and design but without understanding
it at all. I think this is why we keep ending up with all these heartless,
sterile, Kindergarden UI designs.

~~~
bo1024
Mint is still using Gnome 2, or I think there is a new fork of it named
something else.

I agree though, although I blame the shift mainly on the tablet/smartphone
mentality.

~~~
rdrake
Mint is using a Gnome 3 fork called Cinnamon.

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zyb09
So is the start menu gone completely? With Windows7 it was actually on the way
to become something like Spotlight (just not as good yet). I can't believe
they'd patch that out, instead of improving on it, Windows needs something
like Spotlight IMHO.

~~~
underwater
I recall reading that you can type at the start screen to search. So you
should still be able to use the same keypresses to search or launch an app.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
This is right - Win8 for power users is, "Hit Start button on keyboard, type
what you want a-la QuickSilver"

~~~
eropple
...while the new Start-thingy takes over your entire screen. That, more than
anything, is the deal-breaker for me.

~~~
freehunter
Are you actively using other windows while in the process of launching a new
one? It's not like the start screen stays there forever, or the window you
were looking at goes away. There are a lot of nit-picking curmudgeons in this
thread.

~~~
eropple
Often, yes. I might be watching a video and using muscle memory to go Start ->
"gv" -> Enter to start up gvim for another window, for example.

It's not nit-picking when the decision is a bad one.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
I'd tend to agree, though I think it's far more painful if you're in a VM with
bad video perf versus a native machine with a good video card.

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cheald
I've been using GNOME 3 for a few months, and I actually am on board with this
decision; it feels better, and looks fine. It takes some getting used to, but
a button press (win key) or mouse flick is a lot faster than "mouse mouse to
the corner, position it over the start button, click".

Does make me wonder how it'll work in multi-monitor setups, though. Presumably
you can change the hot corner, but if that's not a launch feature there are
going to be some severely annoyed users.

~~~
kijin
Hot corners are also a terrible experience when you're running the OS inside a
non-fullscreen virtual machine. Sorry, your mouse just left the window instead
of triggering the smart corner.

But then, if you're targeting the tablet market, none of this would matter.

~~~
mrj
Yeah, that was my thought, too. Actually, I have a second monitor on that
side, so trying to hit the corner would be a pain.

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smhinsey
I wonder if this is going to bring us back to the days where you need to run a
server version of the OS if you want an environment suitable for doing
technical work. I can't imagine running this on my dual 30'' setup.

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Skywing
After reading the article and hearing that you activate the start menu by
"flicking" the mouse to the bottom left, I instinctively tried it myself and
noticed an issue. I'm running a dual monitor setup, where my second monitor is
to the left of my main monitor. Flicking the mouse to the bottom left just
causes it to go to the second monitor, if I'm not careful. Now, to enter the
start menu, I am going to have to carefully move the mouse down to the bottom
left, just as I do with the start button as it currently is. This just seems
like it's more prone to issues than the start button, for not much gain. Of
course, I am open to trying it, just like I have every previous Windows
version.

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Raphael
Terrible move. It doesn't save any space because the taskbar is still there.
And most people use wide screens, so there is plenty of room for shortcuts
horizontally.

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derekerdmann
If there's anything we've learned from the Engineering Blogs, they don't make
major changes like this unless they have some kind of data that supports it.

I suspect we haven't even seen half of the things that will make this paradigm
work, and I'd bet they have extensive Usability tests to back all of it up.

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RexRollman
I've once used a program called "Start Killer" on my Windows 7 desktop, which
removed the start menu button. I did this because I thought the desktop would
look better without it. The Start menu would still come up when the Windows
key was pressed, so that still worked, but I quickly found it annoying because
there was no way to activate it with the mouse (which I did more often than I
realized).

As for Windows 8, I have high hopes for it because I like Windows 7, but I do
think Microsoft is going to end up with a weird GUI mashup if they are not
careful.

~~~
danneu
Ever since I started using launchers to find programs/files/settings, I
realized the pointlessness of a Start button. For Windows, I used Launchy. In
Linux, I'm typing the program name into terminal.

The average user uses the Start menu as a browseable library of their
installed programs (which it isn't even good at), so I think a direct list of
apps is better all around with an option to launch apps from an intuitive
search bar.

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CoughlinJ
There needs to be a branch between the classic HID driven computing
experience, and what is obviously an immersive, touch driven product. I feel
like the Metro UI is what we'll be heading towards eventually, but I think
some things just need to stay the same. A solid manipulative platform that is
clean as it is elegant in its structure and its function is something I think
a lot of us will need for the foreseeable future..

~~~
bo1024
Agreed -- it's the difference between the keyboard/mouse and the touchscreen.
They have different strengths and different use cases, so a one-size-fits-all
approach is silly.

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thyrsus
I suppose the off button will be easier to find, since you won't have to know
that to turn off you have to click "Start".

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yason
If it activates from the corner like in Gnome 3 then this is much better than
the Start button.

The Start button was always a few pixels off the edges so you couldn't just
shove your mouse to bottom-left corner and click. Instead, you had to find the
corner and offset the mouse a notch towards up-right to hit the button.

~~~
ppog
They fixed that in Windows XP. (Although in Vista they made the Start button
circular so it no longer appeared to occupy the corner pixel, the entire
bottom left corner did remain hot, and remains so in Windows 7.)

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frio
Out of interest: has Microsoft commented at all on whether this new UI will
integrate with the Kinect for PC? While my screens are far enough away that a
touchscreen would prove arduous, flicking and sliding through screens with
gestures might tie well to the Metro experience.

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scott_s
_It’s even worse for first-time users: There’s no visual cue at all for
returning to the Metro interface._

This mattered two decades ago. It does not matter now. Two decades ago, there
was a large number of people who were just starting to integrate computers
into their daily lives. This is no longer true. Computers _are_ integrated
into people's daily lives. The only people [1] who are "just starting" to
integrate computers into their daily lives are the same people who are "just
starting" to integrate using a toilet into their daily lives.

From now on, people will grow up with computers, and I think we should design
interfaces to reflect that. "But what about first-time users?" should no
longer be an interesting question.

[1] I'm sure someone can come up with specific counter-examples. I submit that
those cases are rare enough that they shouldn't be a primary consideration for
designing interfaces. Of course, there should be interface back-doors for
disabilities and such, but that is not the same as primary considerations for
most people.

~~~
DarkShikari
It's not about _new to computers_ , it's about _new to your interface_.

If you have a new interface, especially one that works differently from the
old interface in a notable way, you can't assume that everyone will instantly
figure out your new interface without cues.

~~~
freehunter
I think it would be quite unlikely that the majority of users would be given a
Windows 8 machine without some kind of tutorial. Windows has had a "Welcome to
Windows" since at least Windows 95 (IIRC). Corporate users are generally given
a brief documentation page on how to use their computer (we rolled out Windows
7 last summer with a 3-page document with screenshots of how to get around).

There will be precious few who can never get the hang of it.

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LoneWolf
From the few screenshots and videos I saw of windows 8 I cant make myself like
it, the metro interface looks good for a tablet I agree with that, but for a
desktop? I dont think so. Guess I will have to wait until I get my hands on it
to know for sure.

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Tichy
I really dislike this trend in UI design. The reason is simple: I want a fair
chance to discover how to do stuff on my computer. I don't want to read
handbooks or worse, watch tutorial videos.

The point of a good UI is to make a handbook superfluous.

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crististm
I can't believe this started 17 years ago. It couldn't be _that_ long... Yep,
it is...

Looks like the desktop metaphor is back in business.

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contextfree
interesting to see how much commotion this apparent change has caused, since
it's almost purely cosmetic - the actual start menu itself was gone (or
replaced) already in the DP.

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timkeller
8 is looking more and more like Vista Take2.

And yes, that seems silly and inflammatory... but it has all the hallmarks of
Vista's over-zealousness, last minute changes and disdain for Microsoft's core
customers.

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drivebyacct2
Good. The variety of uber-usable menus in Linux for many, many years has
spoiled me and I always wind up resenting almost every bit of the Start menu
experience when using Windows. I love to espouse about Cardapio because it's
that awesome. cardapio: <http://i.minus.com/i9sRs.png>

I think it's going to be jarring to move between classic and Metro modes, but
I don't think there's a clear way for Microsoft to alleviate that. I also
don't think it's unreasonable to say that there is a tablet paradigm that can
live alongside the regular desktop paradigm. I think there are some that
expect Microsoft Office and a twitter app to be equally usable via a mouse and
a finger and I'm not sure that's entirely reasonable. At the very least, the
hacker in me has no problem with needing to break out a mouse and keyboard to
really get things done.

~~~
apg
I'm not so sure that the need for touch is really that great in a desktop
environment. It's probably cool for someone looking over your shoulder and
wanting to take control of your computer. But for sitting at the computer and
making something happen... I don't think the usability needs to be 'equal'.
And in the desktop world it should _favor_ the keyboard/mouse.

Here's an anecdote for touch vs. mouse/keyboard:

Pretty sure I'm not - nor is my family setup - typical of a windows user. We
have two touchscreen desktops in our house.

I have a two year old that can work the touchscreen very proficiently. My 5 &
7 year old stick with the mouse and never use the touch, I almost never use
touch, and my wife rarely uses it.

Based on my personal observations, _on the desktop_ , touch is good for very
new users or those who lack the physical coordination to control the mouse and
keyboard. Otherwise, mouse and keyboard wins.

The Windows 8 mouse experience is really lacking at the moment. I expect that
gets a major update in the next version.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I agree with you, that was the point of my post. I think that touch interfaces
and desktop interfaces can stay distinct or complementary. I think there is an
expectation that Windows 8 must make a touch based app great in desktop mode
and vice-versa which I think is untenable.

It's like old efforts to make cars and vans run on the same body. The cars
handled like vans and the vans handled like awkward cars.

If you're looking to only use a mouse, I suspect you will be spending time in
Desktop mode. I know that the CTP has enhanced the mouse support in RT mode,
but it's still touch-first apps. I don't like tablets and don't love the
nature of touch interfaces and I know that I will not be happy with a mouse
and WinRT mode ever. Frankly, if the buttons and layouts are accommodating for
touch interfaces, it's NOT going to be optimal for use with a mouse. (I think
some additional evidence of this would be the intrusion of ribbon into Windows
Explorer. IMO it's pretty obvious that it's motivated by touch interface
needs.)

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derleth
So, is the corporate upgrade path still going to be from Windows 8 to XP?

~~~
kijin
No sane corporation should allow itself to become a guinea pig for even-
numbered Windows releases. Me (4?) was horrible. XP (5?) was OK. Vista (6?)
was a bomb. 7 was OK. 8, meh. 9, maybe the tablet fad will pass by then.

Stick to odd-numbered releases, they're like LTS.

~~~
freehunter
When I look at things like the Samsung Series 7 Slate, I don't think tablets
are a fad. It's a laptop with a portable screen, or a tablet with a dock and a
keyboard. It's running a full OS, with real hardware backing it. How many
times have I wished I didn't have to undock my laptop and lug the bulky thing
over to a coworkers desk to show them something when all I needed was the
screen?

Tablets and keyboards are the new laptops.

~~~
jeltz
Tablets may not be a fad, but I sure hope tablet style interfaces for laptops
and desktops are. The UI should be adapted to input devices and screen size.

~~~
freehunter
Really I think the push is that desktops will be relegated to only the most
power users. Already laptops are king even in business. Tablets are an
extension (or evolution) of that. Desktops are those mainframes you run at
home to store your movies and play your video games.

Desktops will increasingly have to prove their value in the market. In a world
of booming connectivity and mobility, desktops (and even laptops) are legacy
technology. All hail gestures and keyboard shortcuts.

~~~
WiseWeasel
I believe it is laptops which tablets have made redundant, and desktops which
actually have a more valuable usage case at this point. A laptop only makes
sense if you need to set up a workstation for productivity in several
locations, which limits the target market to traveling business professionals.
Most people don't do extended productivity work from multiple locations,
however. For people who simply need a mobile device for recreational use, a
tablet is vastly superior, with its extended battery life and ease and comfort
of operation. For those who only need to have a workstation at a single fixed
location, a desktop is the superior option, as the large screen, full-size
keyboard and mouse are positioned in an optimal ergonomic manner, with the
screen at eye level, keyboard and mouse at proper height and distance, etc.,
allowing for extended usage without repetitive stress injury. A desktop for
productivity and a tablet for casual mobile use represents the most
comfortable, ergonomic and financially justifiable option for the largest
segment of the market; it's laptops which are imminently doomed to niche
relevance.

~~~
freehunter
Either way the market goes, it will be interesting to see the adaptations. One
thing the tech market shows, there's no way of knowing which technology will
explode (and it's not always the most useful tech that wins).

