Microsoft replaces Windows' Start menu with a screen

SOFTWARE CHURN FACTORY Microsoft has cited alleged misuse of the Windows Start menu as the reason it has replaced the Start menu in Windows 8 with a Start screen.

Microsoft's Chaitanya Sareen concluded about the Start menu, "The taskbar has evolved to replace many aspects of the Start menu. You can even say the taskbar reveals many of the weaknesses of the Start menu and that the menu is no longer as valuable as it once was long ago." Sareen reached this conclusion by walking through the history of the Start menu since Windows 95.

Using Microsoft's usage statistics, Sareen showed that the number of items pinned on the Start menu is very low, in 40 per cent of cases none at all, and just three applications - the default - are pinned to the taskbar. A day later, Microsoft's Alice Steinglass went on to announce that the Windows 8 Start screen "is not just a replacement for the Windows 7 Start menu but a bringing together of several different ways of navigating your machine".

Parts of Microsoft's Windows 8 Start screen use the firm's Metro 'tile based' user interface, however modifications to it do introduce a menu interface. As with previous updates to the now deprecated Start menu, Microsoft is pushing the ability to show numerous shortcuts.

Microsoft's major user interface change in Windows 8 is likely to be met with resistance. After all, Start menu-like interfaces are not just on Windows, but many Linux windows managers and to some extent on Mac OS X - it's a widely used and familiar system. However Microsoft knows it needs to do something major to lure punters to Windows 8, given that there isn't too much wrong with Windows 7 and people are still holding on to Windows XP. µ