As the world switched to Windows 8, one of the most annoying fact or “pain point” as Microsoft would say, was the departure of the Start Menu, which a whole lot of people used as a hub to search for files and get to find apps that use less frequently. The Start Menu button was just “gone”, and boy, user were unhappy to have to hack their way to a Start Menu. After an incomplete attempt at convincing us the Start Button was back (it basically linked to the Metro home screen), and after exhausting all other possibilities, the Windows Start Menu is really and truly back – better than ever.
At some point, and we don’t know when, Microsoft will resurrects the Start Menu with everything that you know and like and adds a twist: the menu will now feature tiles and live tiles as well. I find this really cool because it brings all the goodness of the live tiles to desktop users in a non-invasive way, just like this concept showed late last year. The live demo at BUILD was pretty convincing, and I can’t wait to try that. It will make developers lives much better as well since their Modern UI apps will be able to target desktop customers as well.
After going out of the reserve and focusing “too much” on the tablet aspect of the user interface, Microsoft finally got that Desktop users actually do not want to use full screen apps on their desktop PCs. Also, it was a bummer when you had to switch to fullscreen mode to use a cool Windows Metro app. This is no longer the case either. A future update will allow you and I to use Metro apps in a Window.
Unfortunately, we don’t know when this is really coming to the market, but at least, it gives one some hope, knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s good to see that Microsoft has been very active at fixing pain points, and by the looks of it, it bodes well for tablet & desktop users, but also for developers.
Filed in . Read more about Build 2014, Microsoft, Windows and Windows 8.