Are you ready for the Microsoft’s new ‘mini’ Start Menu? Well, the Start Menu won’t be returning to Windows 8.1 later this year as part of Update 2. An update to Windows 8.1 coming in August was rumored to include it; Start Menu has been delayed until 2015, according to ZDNet.
Microsoft had reportedly planned to include the pop-up menu in an update around August of this year. However, it now appears Microsoft has changed its mind, Foley’s sources say this feature may get pushed back until the next full version of Windows, codenamed Threshold, tentatively called Windows 9 in April 2015.
Terry Myerson, the Microsoft Executive Vice President, showed off a Start Menu mock-up during Microsoft’s Build conference in April. At the time, he said Microsoft was going to bring a Start Menu back to Windows as part of the “next iteration” of the operating system. However, he didn’t specify whether that meant Windows 8.1 Update 2 or Threshold.
The new and improved Microsoft-developed Start Menu is similar to the Start Menu of Windows 7, featuring like live tiles along the side for easy app access and also includes many of the Windows 7 Menu functions such as the power button and libraries. It would presumably allow laptop and desktop PC users to avoid the full-screen Start interface that Microsoft introduced in Windows 8.
The Windows 8 users don’t have to wait for a future update to bring back the Start Menu. So many unofficial Start Menu replacements are already available such as Pokki, Classic Shell 4.0 and Start8.
“So now what’s going to be in Windows 8.1 Update 2? Will there be any user-interface changes or will it be more a vehicle for under-the-covers programming interface and reliability improvements? I don’t know at this point,” writes Mary Jo Foley.
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