Start Menu May Arrive in Windows 8.1 Update 3
Read .. more delays. Microsoft’s Terry Myerson revealed that the beloved Start Menu would return to the Windows platform in the near future, but didn’t specify an actual release date. Presumably it was going to launch in Windows 8.1 Update 2. Now sources are reporting that the Start Menu will not arrive until Windows 8.1 Update 3, available in Spring 2015.
Unnamed sources report that Windows 8.1 Update 3 will take place in Spring 2015, the same window that Windows 9 "Threshold" was supposed to be released. Does that mean Windows 9 is already seeing a delay? Sources now point to a Q2/Q3 window for "Threshold," which could mean that Update 3 will be released in April and Windows 9 in June.
Popular Windows leaker WZOR reports that Update 2 will be free to Windows 8.1 Update 1 users, and sold to all other Windows customers at an "affordable price." The same holds true for Windows 9: customers who upgraded to Update 3 will get the new OS for free. That sounds a bit "off," as Microsoft made Windows 7 users pay $40 for the Windows 8 upgrade when it was first released. Then again, we've heard this "free" argument before, as Microsoft supposedly wants everyone on the newest version.
In a separate report by a user at EightForums, "Indianatone" called Microsoft about an activation issue. In the conversation, this person asked about when Windows 9 would be released, and was told that it would arrive in about a year. This same rep also admitted that customer support was currently being trained for Windows 8.1 Update 2, which will be released in August or September through Windows Store, weighing 3 GB: the same as Update 1.
WZOR indicated last week that Microsoft plans to have a huge internal event sometime this week to discuss the overall plans for Windows. Update 2 is expected to get an RTM escrow during the event, and will be distributed to Microsoft employees willing to take the new OS for a test drive. In turn this trial will help Microsoft track down the software leakers. Via Tom's hardware.
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Windows 8.1 SP1 will get full start menu again - 04/03/2014 09:08 AM
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Full Start menu back with Windows 8.2 - 12/10/2013 09:54 AM
Paul Thurrott reports some good news for desktop users who feel spurned by Windows 8 and aren’t satisfied with the changes made with Windows 8.1: Microsoft is working hard to appease them. T...
New Windows 8.1 Start menu details - 06/25/2013 09:23 AM
Users of Windows 8.1 will partly get the old Windows 7 start menu functionality back. Next to that it will also be possible to skip the Metro start up screen during boot. Hot corners will be able to g...
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yep. I've been doing exactly that since windows 7 and it is much more convenient. I really don't get all the fuss about the start menu.
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Joined: 2010-10-17
Seriously, this is becoming one horrible joke now.
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Who cares?
(Classic shell user)
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Joined: 2008-07-03
In server i use command line and on desktop i just windiws key and type. It doesnt negate that the ui is bogus and not desktop friendly.
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But I do expect that Update 3 will also be a free in-place upgrade, so I read it this way.
a) Windows 8 users can upgrade to the latest Windows 8.1 Update any time they wish. Actually all Windows 8.1 are required to install Update 1 in order to get new security patches from Windows Update). So Update 3 - and Windows 9 , as it seems! - will be a essentially a free in-place upgrade for Windows 8.x users.
b) Windows 7, Vista and XP users will be offered a full-featured upgrade, first as a Windows 8.1 update 2 package (so they could later receive a free Update 3 then Windows 9 upgrade through the Windows Store), then an upgrade to Update 3 and finally to Windows 9 when it is released. However for for these older versions of the OS, there will be no in-place upgrade option as it would follow Windows 8.1 setup logic, which only allows in-place upgrades from 8.0, and for older versions it's just a full install where only documents and media are transferred, but installed programs are removed and will have to be re-installed manually.
The upgrade would sell for a reduced price (say $50) and should finally make Windows XP/7 users consider moving to Windows 9, which in addition to the similar Start Menu will feature major new technologies like WDDM 2.0 and Direct3D 12, and Metro 2.0 with windowed WinRT apps, which are too risky to back-port to the Windows 8.1 code base.