Microsoft says start-menu non-starter this year
 

It looks like Microsoft's promise to provide a Start Menu for Windows 8 with its coming Windows 8.1 Update 2 is not happening. ,

Vole had been promising a new "Mini" Start Menu part of a second update to Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 Update 2 was supposed to arrive in August.

ZDNet hackett Mary Jo Foley said her deep throats in Redmond had told her that Microsoft's operating systems group has decided to hold off on delivering a Microsoft-developed Start Menu until Threshold. Threshold is the next "major" release of Windows which will be released in April 2015.

It is unclear if the postponement is because the feature won't be fully baked in time, or if there's another reason for the change in plans.

Vole is still trying to make Windows 8 work if people have computers rather than tablets. At the moment most people just ignore Metro and its clunky apps and stay on their desktops.

Foley said that the new Microsoft-developed Start Menu isn't going to be the same as the Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7 Start Menus. It will apparently integrate Windows 8's Metro-Style Start screen concept, which Microsoft is stubbornly holding onto.

With no start menu appearing in August, the question is what is going to be in Windows 8.1 Update 2?

So far Microsoft has not revealed if there is going to be any user-interface changes or will it be more a vehicle for under-the-covers programming interface and reliability improvements.

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