14 DAY TRIAL // If you were waiting for the new Start menu to arrive later this year as part of a second Windows 8.1 update, you might be a little disappointed. Word is that Microsoft might after all delay the launch of the Start menu, so instead of the upcoming Windows 8.1 Update, the new feature might actually all arrive in Windows 9.
Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, who has a good track on details regarding upcoming Windows projects, reports via unnamed sources that Microsoft has delayed the launch of the Start menu to early 2015, which most likely means that Windows 9 is the operating system that could finally bring it to the market.
Not much is currently known about the reason behind this decision, but it appears that the Start menu remains a sure thing so although it might arrive later, there's no doubt that Microsoft still sees it as the main method to make its modern operating system easier to use on desktop PCs.
Terry Myerson, who is now in charge of the operating systems division at Microsoft, presented the new Start menu at the BUILD 2014 developer conference in April, saying that a future Windows 8.1 update is very likely to bring it. He also revealed a mockup of what could be the next modern Start menu, a new interpretation using the traditional Windows 7 layout, but featuring Windows 8 elements, such as live tiles.
Myerson hasn't specifically talked about the Start menu, but he did mention that the improvements that Microsoft is planning to make are aimed at mouse users who still want to access their favorite apps straight from the desktop.
“I previewed some work we are doing for the next iteration of Windows, which builds on the journey we began with Windows 8 just over a year ago as well as the releases we’ve done since then. In particular, I showed some early thinking on how the user experience in Windows will evolve in a way that will help developers’ apps make their way to users across devices and form factors,” Myerson said.
People familiar with the matter previously said that the new Start menu is internally codenamed “mini-Start” because it adopts a much simpler design with few elements, but the concept presented at BUILD obviously points otherwise.
Microsoft hasn't yet commented on this new report, so we're still waiting for some official details to find out whether the Start menu is indeed delayed to early 2015 or not.