Microsoft Killed the Start Menu Because No One Uses It 862
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft recently killed the Start Menu, and their explanation for it seems fairly straightforward: no one used it. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but Microsoft explains that use of the Start menu dipped by 11 percent between Windows Vista and Windows 7, with many specialized Start functions — such as exploring pictures — declining as much as 61 percent."
...the dock. (Score:0, Funny)
I haven't used the Start menu for ages, the OS X dock took care of that horrible mess...
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Without the Start Menu, how do I shutdown?
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Hold the power button down for ten seconds, just like always. :)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
The new Stop Menu?
Re:Except for when you need it (Score:2, Funny)
It's not a command line, it's a search box. Been that way for a while - it's actually surprisingly useful once you realize that.
I assume you have used a search box before? Some newfangled web sites have started using them. Or are you still a Yahoo! Directory fan?
Re:This is like GM removing the spare in trunk (Score:5, Funny)
It's more akin to a the owners manual not telling you where the spare tire is.
Microsoft has moved the start menu functions to the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
Re:That monstrosity in Windows8 IS NOT the answer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Launchy did it for me (Score:5, Funny)
I used to do this a long time ago, but I found I was going against the flow. It felt like a never ending battle of me vs the default set up. And then, any time I sat on a computer with "defaults", I wouldn't be used to it.
It would be fine if I never changed computer, or never needed to re-install the OS, however, any time you used a different computer / OS, you would need to re-organize things, go against the defaults. The other problem I had was that sometimes it was hard to perfectly categorize things.
I used to be an IT techie and can't remember if I changed my habits before or after I got my current job in customer support for a computer game company. Our busiest times are after work when everyone is at home, so that's when we have the most people on shift. They tend to change shifts every now and again to give people a chance at the better work hours, not so often any more, but when I started it was once every 2 months. Because of that, I got very good at deciding what settings are worth customizing. I also got pretty good at making most of my important data roaming friendly.
We don't use windows roaming profiles, but we each have our own personal network space. So, when I sit down at a new computer, I have a quick check list file for what I need to set up on new computer which is something like this: .bat file which edits a file for me automatically to set this up with one click). .NET managed and auto updating support tool.
- Change "My Documents" to point to a location on my personal network space
- Have Firefox use a profile which is located on my personal network space (I have a
- Set up outlook.
- Turn off keyboard layout shortcut keys. We have a multilingual office, so our system images include other language keyboard layouts like French. (Did you know that Ctrl+Shift+Left will change to a different keyboard layout on the fly, and will do it only for that current application which will confuse you even more!)
- Turn off accessibility shortcut keys (Yes, I held down shift for 5 seconds because I was thinking about what I wanted to write, not for you to pop up a disruptive dialogue asking if I want to use sticky keys).
- Shortcuts in quick launch for applications I use every day.
- Installation of in house developed
- And a few other little tidbits.
I can be up and running in less than 15 minutes on a new computer.
Although, about the start menu thing, at work on WinXP (windows 7 is coming "soon") I use Win+R to bring up the Run box to start things not on my quick launch bar, at home on my Win7 machine I use instant search.
People on here slamming instant search obviously haven't used it. It's really great, at work it's absolutely awesome in outlook, you can search for email by recipient, time, subject or body and have results within seconds. On Windows 7 and Vista, it's really fast on the start menu. Keep in mind that by default it only indexes certain locations like your documents and start menu, to keep the index efficient and fast. It seems to update itself pretty much in real time as you save new files or install new programs.
As for resources it uses up, can't say I feel the pinch at all, then again when I bought my Core i5, I also got 8GB of RAM at the same time as RAM is really pretty cheap these days. I absolutely love my home PC through and through. I use it for games, virtual machines, development, all sorts of stuff.
On Killing Seldom Used Features (Score:4, Funny)
Let's do a quick exercise in Microsoftian design: The week has 168 hours.
Shall we assume the typical adult male has 4x 15-minute sexual intercourses per week ? It's probably pushing a bit, but fine, let's exaggerate. That'll be 1 hour per week.
Shall we assume the typical adult male urinates 8 times per day (once every 2 hours while awake), and each event lasts 1 minute ? That'll be 8 minutes per day, 56 minutes per week. Let's round things up and call it 1 hour. We're exaggerating anyway.
166/168 = 0.9880. On our typical adult male, the penis is idle and unused 98.8% of the time. If the human body was designed by the Windows 8 design team, we would be dickless.