Rumor: Start Button in Windows 8.1 to Have No Menu
The Windows 8.1 Start button may not have a menu. Meanwhile, the latest leak points to a public preview.
While we've already seen reports that Windows 8.1 may provide a Start button when it's supposedly released later this year, a new report suggests that it won't pull up the Start Menu as we've come to know and love over the last two decades. Instead, by clicking on the button, users will only be greeted by the tile-based, touch-friendly Windows 8 Start screen.
This would be unfortunate given that one of the complaints surrounding Windows 8 has been a lack of a Start button that pulls up the Start Menu. Last year after the platform went live, Microsoft defended its removal, saying that customers didn't really use the Menu, that they pinned shortcuts to the task bar instead. A lackluster reception of Windows 8 and the strong sales Stardock has seen with its Start8 app seemingly says otherwise.
According to reports, the Windows 8 Start button will reside at the bottom-left of the screen just as it has in previous versions. It will even feature the Windows 8 logo as seen on the Charms bar and on Windows 8-based keyboards. The problem is that the function to switch to the Start Screen already exists at the bottom-left corner – why do we need a button that does the same thing? Will this button make it easier to jump back and forth between Start screen and desktop?
Winsupersite reports that the addition of the Start button comes from the upper management which "overruled objections from the Windows team". He said that the Windows team, which is also objecting to the boot-to-desktop option, was given too much free reign after the success of Windows 7. But now that Windows 8 is seemingly blamed for the decline in PC sales and Steven Sinofsky is out of the picture, the upper management is taking more control and tuning in to customer feedback.
Meanwhile, evidence of a Windows 8.1 Preview has surfaced in another leaked build of the "Blue" OS upgrade. Reference to the "Preview" was found in the system files along with mention of Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows RT 8.1. There's speculation that Microsoft will launch a public preview of the new Windows RT build for Surface customers and perhaps even those who purchased RT tablets from Microsoft partners.
There have certainly been a number of "leaks" taking place over the last several weeks, all slowly revealing new features and changes to the Windows 8 platform. Are they controlled leaks to generate some positive buzz around what many OEMs have called a disappointing platform, or is it really that easy to lose an OS? The number of recent leaks is both a bit troubling, and a little hard for Microsoft to deny.
We expect to learn more about what's going on in June during BUILD 2013, and could even see the launch of the Windows 8.1 Public Preview during the conference.

1. I can boot to the desktop.
2. If I understood correctly, pressing the Windows button in 8.1 will toggle between Start Screen (where I can search for stuff) and the desktop. Right now, pressing the button toggles between start screen and whichever app I had opened last.
The issue for isn't so much with the lack of a menu, but for the fact that the desktop was turned into "just another app". I want the traditional desktop to go back to being the focal point of the operating system, which is what I think these changes will enable. I was really just using the start menu to search for software and files, which I can still do easily in the start screen, just by typing.
This change does nothing, I can still access metro by moving my mouse the the same area as the start button. Any fool who believes this will fix the complaints obviously dreaming.
I know this is a weird place to rant about this (It'd be better suited for Win8 hate articles at PC Magazine site, or Foxnews/CNN/NBC), but while most actually report news and inject a few lines of opinion, you literally have only four sentences in this article of actual news, and the rest is completely biased personal opinion.
Hence why the article's title started with the word Rumor.
I swear, some people would complain for not getting cream and sugar in their black coffee....
Not likely to happen :-) They are going full speed toward mobile and touch based computers....
Most propably:
Win8 will see a guite a lot variant and variance between good ole win7 style desktop modes and Modern UI modes, but the wholw MS economy is been going to based on MS-store, so it is an economy based solution to MS.
Hard to say wht this does mean in bigger picture, but there are a lot of marks that points to that direction. Many will stay in win7 as long as possible and then maybe some win8 variant that offer most old school like version of desctop mode. Rest will move to pure Modern UI OS like win9 or win10.
I am a teacher for youg child and even now the children with age 6-8 prefer to use virtual keyboard instead of real one when they are using nomal desktop computer (with win7)... I was somewhat shocked, and did feel like dinosaur compared to those touch native children... We, my friends in here, are obsolate in 10-15 years... I feel so old...