If you are the type that misses the Start Menu in Windows 8 and want it back, you may be still be in luck. One of the biggest changes in Microsoft’s latest OS is how it has done away with the traditional Start Menu and replaced it with a Start Screen that provides users with live tiles while at the same time giving them the ability to launch apps.
But after the recent dramatic departure of Steven Sinofsky as the head of Microsoft’s Windows Division, word on the street is that all Windows 8 platforms could be getting an official Start Menu as an option very soon. Sinofsky, after all, was the biggest proponent of replacing the Start Menu with the Start Screen — a feature he thought that would bring the desktop industry closer to the touch-optimized market.
In fact, CIO Today believes that Sinofsky was the one that convinced CEO Steve Ballmer to implement his idea claiming that it was in line with the company’s long-term goals. But early adopters of Window 8 (particularly on the desktop and laptop platforms) have found the change confusing — with many feeling a missing comfort factor for how they want to use their computers.
Steve Ballmer, in an interview with Associate Press in October already made it very clear that Microsoft had no intentions of bringing the start menu back. “You already have a whole screen as a Start button”, Ballmer was reported as saying. Sinofsky, for his part, was certain that it was just a matter of time until people got used to the Start Screen.
“You know, as familiar and productive as Windows 7 is for customers today, the world that led to Windows 7 began back in the early 1990s when familiar concepts like the Start menu were first conceived. Familiar today, but completely new when it was first released. That technology world was so very different than the world we experience each and every day.”
That, of course, hasn’t stopped software developers from creating their own Start buttons for Windows 8. The number of third-party apps that allow you to bring back the Start Menu is constantly increasing, with Stardock’s Start8 leading the pack.
The software has already moved tens of thousands of copies, with an even larger number of trial version downloads.
