14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is set to unveil the preview version of Windows 9 later this month, and everyone expects to be allowed to try out some new features, including the Start menu and a desktop flavor of Cortana.
According to new reports coming from Russian sources, Microsoft is actually locking the Start menu in existing Windows 9 builds in order to prevent them from trying this feature and presumably leak screenshots with it in action to the web.
Win-community.ru is reporting that the Start menu is indeed included in the Windows 9 Preview builds that Microsoft submitted to partners, but in many cases, the feature is either disabled or does not work at all.
One of the reasons could be the fact that Microsoft is still working on the Start menu, the site says, so until the feature is ready, the company won’t show it. And still, some of the sources who have already received access to Windows 9 builds say that the Start menu is there and working as it should, which does nothing more than to make all these rumors even vaguer.
The Start menu comeback was confirmed for the first time by Microsoft at the BUILD 2014 conference in San Francisco in April this year, and at that time the company said that a second Windows 8.1 update was very likely to bring it.
In the meantime, plans have changed, and Microsoft now intends to keep all these novelties for Windows 9, the next full Windows version that’s expected to be released in April 2015.
The mockup presented by Microsoft at BUILD was based on a concept that mixed traditional Start menu elements available to users on Windows 7 and modern features such as live tiles, with the company clearly planning to make the desktop more usable in the next Windows version.
Rumors swirling around right now suggest that the Start menu could also come with an option to run in full screen mode, thus acting more like a Start screen and also boasting live tiles. At the same time, Microsoft is tweaking the upcoming Windows 9 SKUs to better match the device they are running on, so PCs, for example, will automatically get the Start menu and no Start screen.
Tablets, on the other hand, will boot straight to the Start screen and might not get a desktop at all, as Microsoft considers that Windows RT devices should stick to the Modern UI.