First, the easy one. The Start menu is not coming back, nor should it. The new Start screen is a superior app launcher, and if you’re tied to the desktop, you should be using taskbar application and web site pinning anyway … as you should be doing in Windows 7. Here, there is no meaningful loss of functionality in Windows 8 at all: Application launching works as before (taskbar) and the other Windows 7-era Start menu functions are all in better and more consistent places. Done.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
First, the easy one. The Start menu is not coming back, nor should it. The new Start screen is a superior app launcher, and if you’re tied to the desktop, you should be using taskbar application and web site pinning anyway … as you should be doing in Windows 7. Here, there is no meaningful loss of functionality in Windows 8 at all: Application launching works as before (taskbar) and the other Windows 7-era Start menu functions are all in better and more consistent places. Done.
