Microsoft Explains why they Killed the Windows Start Button

It seems that the familiar sight of Microsoft’s Start button will indeed become a thing of the past – but why? It’s taken years for people to get used to clicking ‘Start’ in order to close down their Windows machine.

The all-doing Start button has been with us for 17 years but now, Microsoft is going to erase our old friend. But, what is the reasoning behind the decision?

Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft, says: “We’d seen the trend in Windows 7. When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar. We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option…

“So I’m a desktop user, I pin the browser, Explorer, whatever my apps are. I don’t go the Start menu as often. If you’re going to the Start screen now, we’re going to unlock a whole new set of scenarios, or you can choose not to go there, stay in the desktop, and it’s still fast. You can’t beat the taskbar.”

Don’t worry Start fans! The button may be gone but it leaves behind a legacy. Instead of that handy disc in the bottom left-hand side of your screen there is ‘hot corner’ – you even get another in the bottom right which offers up more menus, too!

Are you sad to see the Start button go or are you glad that you no longer have to explain to your olds why Start can mean stop?