5 ms·

As much as the UI was fluid, smooth and probably best for a touch interface, I distinctly remember I hated it and frantically wanted my Start button back on my

by nelblu 8mo ago

As much as the UI was fluid, smooth and probably best for a touch interface, I distinctly remember I hated it and frantically wanted my Start button back on my PC. It is kinda funny reading all the comments about its nostalgia, when all I could think was how annoying it was. I guess to each their own :-).

rjzzleep 8mo ago
I remember that as well, and in the enterprise they added one of those start menu plugins. But boy, compared to a react based startmenu in 2025...
lloeki 8mo ago
On "regular computers" I think it was flawed in two fatal ways: - there was already an extremely heavy expectation that clicking the start button or pressing the windows key would bring up a menu, not a full screen takeover where all contextual sense of place (that you had in the past experience) was lost. - the UI being a full-screen takeover on a phone (Windows Phone) or a tablet (10"-ish tops at the time) was OK but on a 21~27" desktop it's absurdly overwhelming.
- HPsquared 8mo ago
  Especially with such a low information density. It was clearly just a massive amount of wasted screen space on desktop.
  - WorldMaker 8mo ago
    If you had good Live Tiles there was a ton of information density. You could have the weather, your calendar, recent emails, recent tweets, recent photos, interesting news, etc all on one at-a-glance screen (versus the phone form factor where you'd need at least some scrolling). It felt like wasted space on the desktop because it was originally hard for desktop apps to opt-in to Live Tiles and send Live Tile updates and not enough people were using the sorts of multi-platform apps that had great Live Tiles.
    - 72deluxe 8mo ago
      Sadly grids of unrelated data aren't good for information at a glance. A wall of post-it notes will never beat a structured list; the old Start menu was a structured list, where you knew things were always in the same place (the Programs submenu didn't move or say "software" sometimes, and "programs" other times) whereas the Windows 8 menu was a wall of random post-it notes flung on the screen and you're meant to gaze over the entire thing to look at unrelated data and somehow make sense of it.
      - WorldMaker 8mo ago
        A wall of post-it notes can be incredibly handy to the person that placed the post-it notes. The Start screen was never "random", it was designed for customization and personalization. Programs stayed where you told them to in the groups and sizes you wanted them to. Choosing a size would affect how much data an app could show. The program might provide a tile of new data it would show some of the time, but the program's name and icon would still show up in most of the tile variants (and hover tooltips worked on Desktop), and any app could only have at most 3 tiles at a time. The timing of tile flips was a bit random, but there was also a general rhythm to it you would pick up if you used it a lot. It was a very intentional "dance". At least in my experience there was a lot of sense to it. I had a lot of data organized to my liking in Windows 8.
- fluoridation 8mo ago
  The start screen is something you just had to get used to. I think it's more comfortable than the menu. Effectively it works as a second desktop to put application shortcuts on. I have about 30-40 on mine (on Windows 10, mind you), which is way more than would fit on a menu without submenus.
tempodox 8mo ago
Click Start to end your session.
- bityard 8mo ago
  Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to login.
  - tosti 8mo ago
    Double-click Trash to get to the files.
  - lproven 8mo ago
    > Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to login. At the time (1993, when NT came out) there was a good reason. C-A-D was a special reserved keystroke that couldn't be intercepted or redirected. So you could use it even to interrupt a task that had frozen the entire UI. Using it for login meant it could bypass and circumvent any malware that attempted to steal credentials, etc. Then MS let people replace the GINA that handled it, and then they let people turn it off, and it joined the rest of the slide into junkware...
giancarlostoro 8mo ago
I always use the Windows key instead of pressing the start menu button, so I didn't really care. I always thought it made more sense as a Tablet / Touch OS, and for people without a touch screen, Windows 8 was just terrible. It had good intentions, poorly executed. Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. My favorite goof of Windows 8 was the most googled question: "how do I turn it off?" It required stupid mouse witchcraft and incantations to shut off if you weren't in a touch screen. Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most.
- wolfi1 8mo ago
  simply pressing ALT+F4 didn't do it? (of course you had to click the desktop first)
  - giancarlostoro 8mo ago
    That still worked yes! But I don't think most people knew about this. You just gave me flashbacks to those days working at the local college, we would do this to restart all the machines in a classroom, we had them all on Deepfreeze so it would purge anything students downloaded / installed. We had other remote ways of doing it, but it was fun doing the shortcut too from time to time.
  - WorldMaker 8mo ago
    It did. To some extent it seems like it was a telemetry mistake that some of the easier mouse controls (an actual button for start rather than gesture; a missing obvious power button; not having a simple mouse button to get to the Charms; etc). Windows users opted into Windows telemetry all must have seemed to be keyboard-heavy (probably because only certain types of power users, such as myself, were opting in to telemetry). All of the keyboard shortcuts still worked. Some new keyboard shortcuts were added. Windows 8 was extremely useful from a keyboard shortcut viewpoint. (The Charms made a lot more sense from the keyboard.)
- dpoloncsak 8mo ago
  > Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. > Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most. Did/Does anyone actually use the touch screen on a laptop? Surfaces still ship with a touchscreen, so I assume they've done their market research.... It just seems like the trackpad/keyboard are the better ways to interface with your laptop, especially when it's already built in and not BT accessories or something. I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy but I'd assume the thought process was something along the lines of "Customers want touch screens on phones and tablets, not laptops" My laptop fills the role of "Desktop computer on the go" and I want it to emulate that as close as possible, aside from form factor. Maybe I'm in the minority there? Others do use a laptop as a primary 'daily driver' and want the touch screen?
josefresco 8mo ago
What I find slightly amusing is that my Chromebook used to have a center-aligned task menu. Now Windows has a center-aligned task menu and Chrome OS...aligned it left!
neogodless 8mo ago
I think 8.1 and later fixed a lot of this, but in 8, even if you were on a 100% "desktop" device using mouse and keyboard, whenever you'd "close" an app, it would take to the huge start screen instead of your desktop, and you'd have to find the "desktop" button to get back to that. This is some of what I wrote in July 2013 as suggestions for how Windows 8 should change behavior when mouse and keyboard is present: • By default, boot to the desktop. (This is a new individually available option in Windows 8.1.) • By default, return to previous applications. Similar to Windows Phone and Windows 7, when you close an application, you should return to where you were before. If you are in any kind of desktop experience when launching an application, whether it's for the desktop or in the Modern interface, you should return to that desktop environment upon closing the application. • By default, open media files and documents in desktop applications. Fortunately, when you select these as your defaults, you are properly returned to the desktop when you close the application. Unfortunately, any Modern applications return you to the Start Screen when you close them. • By default, if there is no touch screen, disable hot corners and edges. Provide an option to enable them within your mouse-driven experience. • By default, if there is no touch screen, provide a classic Start Menu in addition to the Start Screen. Mice are well-suited to smaller menus that pop out and allow you to remain largely in the desktop experience while you select new files and applications to open. Provide an option to disable the Start Menu and jump to the Start Screen if desired. • Upon first run and selection of the mouse-driven experience, run a video demonstration introducing users to the Modern interface, Start Screen, hot corners, gestures, charms, Windows Store and Modern applications, focused on how to access these items with a mouse and keyboard. • By default, provide a Search experience tailored to the desktop environment. "Most of the above options already exist in Windows 8, but it takes some information, time and effort for users to change the settings and get the experience you expect when using a system without a touch screen, largely driven by mouse control. It is in these conditions that users are frustrated by Windows 8, as they find themselves faced with interfaces that are much friendlier to touch screens, and are unexpectedly removed from the desktop experience and placed into the Modern interface and Start Screen, disrupting their workflow and adding extra steps to return to the windows, applications and tasks they were working in. An overall one-click default upon first usage of Windows would allow users to select the mouse-driven experience they prefer on systems that are not primarily driven by touch."
kasabali 8mo ago
First thing I did after installing upgrading to Windows 8 was installing Startisback and I forgot I was even running it. I'm not exaggerating, one time a friend sitting by asked if I was it was Windows 8 and I had to think for a moment. Windows 8.1 combined with StartIsBack was a much better OS than Windows 10 I was actually surprised when everyone praised that ad pushing piece of crap with mandatory spyware, forced updates and inconsistent UI all over the place.
airstrike 8mo ago
It did a few things right relative to Vista but it was also bad in many different ways, including but not limited to the (double) Control Panel So it was a bit of a love/hate relationship. Windows 2K is still the best ever made by Microsoft. I wish they'd just stay on that design and make incremental improvements to keep it fresh and modern.
- doublerabbit 8mo ago
  I really liked Vista. It's problem aside, that were fixed in future Service Packs it felt like a new OS.
dessimus 8mo ago
>It is kinda funny reading all the comments about its nostalgia, when all I could think was how annoying it was. Agreed and it happens with almost every sunsetted version of Windows. At the time of XP, it was how great W98SE was, and in 7, XP was so amazing, etc., etc. I think the "every other version" meme has only recently been killed by MS because it has been so long from 8.1 to 10 to 11. But even when 11 is sunsetted, there will surely be articles about how amazing 11 was and how much they dislike 12.
- diego_sandoval 8mo ago
  I think all versions after Win 7 have sucked.
gspencley 8mo ago
Yeah I don't remember anyone liking Windows 8 at the time. I'm honestly a little bit surprised to hear that there is nostalgia for it at all.
spookie 8mo ago
Tbf the mobile OS with a similar design language was the best mobile UI I ever had the pleasure of using. Last time I felt impressed by Microsoft but alas.
- Propelloni 8mo ago
  Me too! Metro design was, I don't know, a whole different league compared to Apple or the Androids of that time. I'm not sad that MS failed on that front, but damn, that was a good mobile phone UI.
hypercube33 8mo ago
My first experience with it was I couldn't figure out how to shut down my pc (the stupid side charm bar) on Beta 1 of Windows 8. It was last seen perhaps in the Windows 11 Beta 1 release, confined within the start menu and I think this is where it peaked. It was removed shortly after to the yuck we have now, perhaps slightly coming back in 25H2 with the New Windows 11 start menu experience app groups (I have not personally used it)
wodenokoto 8mo ago
I too hated original metro on desktop back in the day and especially missed the start menu, but I also look back on it fondly. I think that Microsoft was ahead of its time and that they had a better design language than any competitor and original metro still holds up favorably to contemporary designs. Last time I sat down with a windows 11 pc I even thought “wouldn’t it be better if the start menu was just full screen?”

by nelblu 8mo ago

rjzzleep 8mo ago

I remember that as well, and in the enterprise they added one of those start menu plugins. But boy, compared to a react based startmenu in 2025...

lloeki 8mo ago

On "regular computers" I think it was flawed in two fatal ways: - there was already an extremely heavy expectation that clicking the start button or pressing the windows key would bring up a menu, not a full screen takeover where all contextual sense of place (that you had in the past experience) was lost. - the UI being a full-screen takeover on a phone (Windows Phone) or a tablet (10"-ish tops at the time) was OK but on a 21~27" desktop it's absurdly overwhelming.

HPsquared 8mo ago
Especially with such a low information density. It was clearly just a massive amount of wasted screen space on desktop.
- WorldMaker 8mo ago
  If you had good Live Tiles there was a ton of information density. You could have the weather, your calendar, recent emails, recent tweets, recent photos, interesting news, etc all on one at-a-glance screen (versus the phone form factor where you'd need at least some scrolling). It felt like wasted space on the desktop because it was originally hard for desktop apps to opt-in to Live Tiles and send Live Tile updates and not enough people were using the sorts of multi-platform apps that had great Live Tiles.
  - 72deluxe 8mo ago
    Sadly grids of unrelated data aren't good for information at a glance. A wall of post-it notes will never beat a structured list; the old Start menu was a structured list, where you knew things were always in the same place (the Programs submenu didn't move or say "software" sometimes, and "programs" other times) whereas the Windows 8 menu was a wall of random post-it notes flung on the screen and you're meant to gaze over the entire thing to look at unrelated data and somehow make sense of it.
    - WorldMaker 8mo ago
      A wall of post-it notes can be incredibly handy to the person that placed the post-it notes. The Start screen was never "random", it was designed for customization and personalization. Programs stayed where you told them to in the groups and sizes you wanted them to. Choosing a size would affect how much data an app could show. The program might provide a tile of new data it would show some of the time, but the program's name and icon would still show up in most of the tile variants (and hover tooltips worked on Desktop), and any app could only have at most 3 tiles at a time. The timing of tile flips was a bit random, but there was also a general rhythm to it you would pick up if you used it a lot. It was a very intentional "dance". At least in my experience there was a lot of sense to it. I had a lot of data organized to my liking in Windows 8.
fluoridation 8mo ago
The start screen is something you just had to get used to. I think it's more comfortable than the menu. Effectively it works as a second desktop to put application shortcuts on. I have about 30-40 on mine (on Windows 10, mind you), which is way more than would fit on a menu without submenus.

tempodox 8mo ago

Click Start to end your session.

bityard 8mo ago
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to login.
- tosti 8mo ago
  Double-click Trash to get to the files.
- lproven 8mo ago
  > Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to login. At the time (1993, when NT came out) there was a good reason. C-A-D was a special reserved keystroke that couldn't be intercepted or redirected. So you could use it even to interrupt a task that had frozen the entire UI. Using it for login meant it could bypass and circumvent any malware that attempted to steal credentials, etc. Then MS let people replace the GINA that handled it, and then they let people turn it off, and it joined the rest of the slide into junkware...

giancarlostoro 8mo ago

I always use the Windows key instead of pressing the start menu button, so I didn't really care. I always thought it made more sense as a Tablet / Touch OS, and for people without a touch screen, Windows 8 was just terrible. It had good intentions, poorly executed. Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. My favorite goof of Windows 8 was the most googled question: "how do I turn it off?" It required stupid mouse witchcraft and incantations to shut off if you weren't in a touch screen. Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most.

wolfi1 8mo ago
simply pressing ALT+F4 didn't do it? (of course you had to click the desktop first)
- giancarlostoro 8mo ago
  That still worked yes! But I don't think most people knew about this. You just gave me flashbacks to those days working at the local college, we would do this to restart all the machines in a classroom, we had them all on Deepfreeze so it would purge anything students downloaded / installed. We had other remote ways of doing it, but it was fun doing the shortcut too from time to time.
- WorldMaker 8mo ago
  It did. To some extent it seems like it was a telemetry mistake that some of the easier mouse controls (an actual button for start rather than gesture; a missing obvious power button; not having a simple mouse button to get to the Charms; etc). Windows users opted into Windows telemetry all must have seemed to be keyboard-heavy (probably because only certain types of power users, such as myself, were opting in to telemetry). All of the keyboard shortcuts still worked. Some new keyboard shortcuts were added. Windows 8 was extremely useful from a keyboard shortcut viewpoint. (The Charms made a lot more sense from the keyboard.)
dpoloncsak 8mo ago
> Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. > Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most. Did/Does anyone actually use the touch screen on a laptop? Surfaces still ship with a touchscreen, so I assume they've done their market research.... It just seems like the trackpad/keyboard are the better ways to interface with your laptop, especially when it's already built in and not BT accessories or something. I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy but I'd assume the thought process was something along the lines of "Customers want touch screens on phones and tablets, not laptops" My laptop fills the role of "Desktop computer on the go" and I want it to emulate that as close as possible, aside from form factor. Maybe I'm in the minority there? Others do use a laptop as a primary 'daily driver' and want the touch screen?

josefresco 8mo ago

What I find slightly amusing is that my Chromebook used to have a center-aligned task menu. Now Windows has a center-aligned task menu and Chrome OS...aligned it left!

neogodless 8mo ago

I think 8.1 and later fixed a lot of this, but in 8, even if you were on a 100% "desktop" device using mouse and keyboard, whenever you'd "close" an app, it would take to the huge start screen instead of your desktop, and you'd have to find the "desktop" button to get back to that. This is some of what I wrote in July 2013 as suggestions for how Windows 8 should change behavior when mouse and keyboard is present: • By default, boot to the desktop. (This is a new individually available option in Windows 8.1.) • By default, return to previous applications. Similar to Windows Phone and Windows 7, when you close an application, you should return to where you were before. If you are in any kind of desktop experience when launching an application, whether it's for the desktop or in the Modern interface, you should return to that desktop environment upon closing the application. • By default, open media files and documents in desktop applications. Fortunately, when you select these as your defaults, you are properly returned to the desktop when you close the application. Unfortunately, any Modern applications return you to the Start Screen when you close them. • By default, if there is no touch screen, disable hot corners and edges. Provide an option to enable them within your mouse-driven experience. • By default, if there is no touch screen, provide a classic Start Menu in addition to the Start Screen. Mice are well-suited to smaller menus that pop out and allow you to remain largely in the desktop experience while you select new files and applications to open. Provide an option to disable the Start Menu and jump to the Start Screen if desired. • Upon first run and selection of the mouse-driven experience, run a video demonstration introducing users to the Modern interface, Start Screen, hot corners, gestures, charms, Windows Store and Modern applications, focused on how to access these items with a mouse and keyboard. • By default, provide a Search experience tailored to the desktop environment. "Most of the above options already exist in Windows 8, but it takes some information, time and effort for users to change the settings and get the experience you expect when using a system without a touch screen, largely driven by mouse control. It is in these conditions that users are frustrated by Windows 8, as they find themselves faced with interfaces that are much friendlier to touch screens, and are unexpectedly removed from the desktop experience and placed into the Modern interface and Start Screen, disrupting their workflow and adding extra steps to return to the windows, applications and tasks they were working in. An overall one-click default upon first usage of Windows would allow users to select the mouse-driven experience they prefer on systems that are not primarily driven by touch."

kasabali 8mo ago

First thing I did after installing upgrading to Windows 8 was installing Startisback and I forgot I was even running it. I'm not exaggerating, one time a friend sitting by asked if I was it was Windows 8 and I had to think for a moment. Windows 8.1 combined with StartIsBack was a much better OS than Windows 10 I was actually surprised when everyone praised that ad pushing piece of crap with mandatory spyware, forced updates and inconsistent UI all over the place.

airstrike 8mo ago

It did a few things right relative to Vista but it was also bad in many different ways, including but not limited to the (double) Control Panel So it was a bit of a love/hate relationship. Windows 2K is still the best ever made by Microsoft. I wish they'd just stay on that design and make incremental improvements to keep it fresh and modern.

doublerabbit 8mo ago
I really liked Vista. It's problem aside, that were fixed in future Service Packs it felt like a new OS.

dessimus 8mo ago

>It is kinda funny reading all the comments about its nostalgia, when all I could think was how annoying it was. Agreed and it happens with almost every sunsetted version of Windows. At the time of XP, it was how great W98SE was, and in 7, XP was so amazing, etc., etc. I think the "every other version" meme has only recently been killed by MS because it has been so long from 8.1 to 10 to 11. But even when 11 is sunsetted, there will surely be articles about how amazing 11 was and how much they dislike 12.

diego_sandoval 8mo ago
I think all versions after Win 7 have sucked.

gspencley 8mo ago

Yeah I don't remember anyone liking Windows 8 at the time. I'm honestly a little bit surprised to hear that there is nostalgia for it at all.

spookie 8mo ago

Tbf the mobile OS with a similar design language was the best mobile UI I ever had the pleasure of using. Last time I felt impressed by Microsoft but alas.

Propelloni 8mo ago
Me too! Metro design was, I don't know, a whole different league compared to Apple or the Androids of that time. I'm not sad that MS failed on that front, but damn, that was a good mobile phone UI.

hypercube33 8mo ago

My first experience with it was I couldn't figure out how to shut down my pc (the stupid side charm bar) on Beta 1 of Windows 8. It was last seen perhaps in the Windows 11 Beta 1 release, confined within the start menu and I think this is where it peaked. It was removed shortly after to the yuck we have now, perhaps slightly coming back in 25H2 with the New Windows 11 start menu experience app groups (I have not personally used it)

wodenokoto 8mo ago

I too hated original metro on desktop back in the day and especially missed the start menu, but I also look back on it fondly. I think that Microsoft was ahead of its time and that they had a better design language than any competitor and original metro still holds up favorably to contemporary designs. Last time I sat down with a windows 11 pc I even thought “wouldn’t it be better if the start menu was just full screen?”