The First Glimpse of the Windows 8 Start Menu

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A new start for Windows 8.

The Microsoft Build event is kicking off in Anaheim, CA this week, so we're expecting lots of Windows 8 related news bits.

Before the conference starts, here is one new tidbit: the Windows 8 start menu. Microsoft has not officially talked about any of its changes in the start menu from Windows 7 to 8, but you can see below that there's been some tweaks that draw from Windows Phone 7.

The new start menu first popped up in Microsoft's demonstration of Windows 8's native ISO and VHD mounting. Hopefully we'll know much more this week.

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
103 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cottonball
    Looks like I will stick be using Windows 7 for a long time.
    Reply
  • clonazepam
    I'll be first in line. The first thing I'll do is click on start, look it over, and then simply look for the "classic" option.
    Reply
  • Thunderfox
    And so they continue to dumb things down for phones and tablets. To hell with people who actually use their computers.
    Reply
  • It looks really out of place there.
    Reply
  • Wamphryi
    It seems to me that the start menu shown in the picture is likely a specific start menu for My Computer (or whatever it will be called) as opposed to the actual Desktop start menu.
    Reply
  • RabidFace
    i don't like it.
    Reply
  • ichihaifu
    I hope theres an option for W7 theme.
    Reply
  • ohim
    that`s dumb.
    Reply
  • wahjahka
    meh, liked the one 7 better.
    Reply
  • Benihana
    At least they seem to be still calling it a "Start Menu", unlike the taskbar -> superbar name change with Vista -> 7. Funny enough, the option itself wasn't changed within windows, so it still said "Lock the taskbar" instead of "lock the superbar".
    Reply