Win8 completely cancels the start button and gives up 17 years of persistence

On February 29th, the Win8 Consumer Preview was released as scheduled, and the new version of Win8 has improved in many ways compared to the developer preview released last September. Among them, canceling the use of the start button for many years is a bold attempt for Windows. As early as the release of the Win8 Developer Preview, Microsoft has said that Win8 will be the most widely changed version of Windows, and it seems to be the case.

Win8 cancels start buttons and menus

Since the release of Windows 95 in 1995, the Start button has been familiar and used like the Windows logo. However, according to a survey conducted by Microsoft, most of the functions in the start menu are decreasing from Windows Vista to Windows 7.

Microsoft survey data shows that start menu usage is decreasing

This phenomenon is especially noticeable in Windows 7, and more and more users are beginning to lock applications to the taskbar, and The start menu is used less frequently as the application's startup and switching functions. Therefore, Microsoft added the “Start Screen” to Win8 and completely canceled the Start button.

In Win8, when switching to the Windows Classic mode interface, move the mouse to the start button at the bottom left corner of the screen, a thumbnail of the start screen will be displayed, and click to switch to the start screen.

Win8 Classic Mode displays the start screen thumbnail in the lower left corner of the screen

For this change, it will be very inconvenient when you first get in touch with Win8, but when you are familiar with Win8 After starting the screen, you will find that the new start screen will have more room to display the file search results and more details. All applications are displayed directly according to the folder order structure, and the start button is not so important to you. .