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Samsung putting Start menu back into Windows 8

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[Update, Wednesday 8/29: Ed Bott reports on ZDNet that Samsung won't be including the Start menu in its Windows PCs when the ship, after all.]

Microsoft’s decision to remove the classic Start button and menu from Windows 8 is one of the most controversial aspects of the new operating system. The company is standing by its decision, but it looks like one PC maker is exercising its veto power.

New Windows 8 PCs unveiled overnight by Samsung include a feature known as the “S Launcher” — giving users access to something very similar to the regular Start menu when they click a related icon on the traditional desktop in Windows 8.

Mashable spotted the feature and has more details and pictures in this post.

We’ve asked Microsoft if it has anything to say about Samsung’s move. Given how steadfast the company has been in trying to move people away from the old Start button and menu, it’s hard to see Windows execs welcoming this feature.

In a broader sense, it’s another sign of rising tension between Microsoft and Windows PC makers. Microsoft will be competing with many of its longtime partners with the release of its new Surface tablet along with Windows 8 in October.

Via Engadget. Photo: Mashable. 

  • Guest

    This is yet another example of why I expect the PC model to thrive for decades to come: without having to seek the OS vendor’s approval, an OEM developed an application in anticipation of customer need and they deployed it eagerly. Kudos to Samsung for taking the lead in yet another category.

    • guest

      It’s not thriving now. Growth is zero overall and negative in several geographies and customer segments. What’s going to put it back to thriving, far less keep it there?

      • Guest

        Selling only 500 million PCs is “not thriving”? My friends at IDC tell me that’s how many PCs will be sold in 2012, and virtually all of them will run Windows 7 or 8.

        • guest

          Check back with your IDC friends for some updated information because they, like everyone else, have probably been busy revising those downwards dramatically in light of this quarter’s terrible PCs sales and forcasts for next quarter. The latest estimates I’ve seen call for maximum 5% growth over this year’s 380M, and downside estimates of negative single-digits. That doesn’t equal 500M, or even 400M, at least by my math.

  • guest

    Given the uphill battle MS already faces with W8, I really don’t understand why they added to their troubles by making it so difficult to restore to legacy start button for people who wanted it. It’s a minor software tweak. Why not just include it as an option? If they really believe the new start is so much better, have the confidence to make both at least possible and let consumers decide. This decision not to, seems more about MS wanting to see Metro (OMG, I might be sued now) established quickly, whether consumers want it or not, mostly to give their failiing phone OS a chance. I like Metro on tablets. It’s great. I also like it on WP. I haven’t yet decided if I like it on the W8 start. But let me decide. And of course Samsung now making it available anyway just adds to the embarassment all the way around. MS used to rule OEMs with an iron fist. Now most simply ignore MS’s directives. Yet another sign of MS’s declining influence.

    • PartyLikeIts1999!

      Why? Because they’re arrogant, ignorant and isolated.

      They don’t talk to customers, they don’t know how people actually use their products in the real world, they think they know better than the customers, and they think that the stupid customers will fall into line eventually.

      As a former IT Admin I can say that if I was assessing this for my environment I would give VERY serious thought to junking the idea of a corporate desktop and move my environment to a BYOD policy for client systems and focus my energy on the network and servers.

      They don’t get that there’s a choice now and that choice is to not use a PC at all. They’re still looking at the Windows numbers on PCs and thinking it’s still the good old days of 1999.

      The campus in Redmond is such a reality distortion field that folks there haven’t gotten the memo that the old WinTel duopoly days are over.

      • Guestfm

        you don’t think your reply is arrogant, ignorant and isolated?

      • Unresolved_bitterness

        Feel better now?

  • assassinave

    Outside of the fact that it looks exactly like the previously patented Dock for OSX, let them do what Apple doe…they want.

  • Mike_Acker

    MSFT needs to REWORK their System Security and quit tweaking the interface. there’s serious WORK needed and these foos are fussing over cosmetics….

    • guest

      Fussing over cosmetics has worked out pretty well for Apple, which most serious security researchers agree is behind MS on security these days. And even a cursory review of W8′s features shows that it incorporates numerous security enhancements as well as UI changes. So what exactly is your point?