Designer creates a new interpretation of what’s to come in Windows 9

Mar 26, 2014 07:51 GMT  ·  By

Windows 9 is expected to bring quite a lot of changes to Microsoft’s modern operating system, including a brand new Start menu expected to make everything look more familiar and easier to use for both beginners and those more experienced.

While the company has remained completely tight-lipped on the subject, it turns out that Microsoft will break the news on Windows 9 next month at the BUILD 2014 developer conference, while the public launch of the operating system is likely to take place in April 2015.

DeviantArt user Lodmot, on the other hand, couldn’t wait for official news from Microsoft and decided to create his own interpretation of Windows 9, based on the existing speculation on the upcoming operating system.

As you can see for yourselves in the photo published above, the Windows 9 concept comes with its own Start menu, which is clearly supposed to turn the platform into a much friendlier working environment that would appeal to beginners looking for the traditional Windows interface.

The new Start menu provides quick access to recent apps, while also grouping a number of Metro apps, such as Skype and Weather. Live tiles are also enabled, showing the current weather and information regarding your latest calls on Skype. Power options have also been integrated into the Start menu, and so has been a search option to quickly look for information both online and offline.

“I decided to come up with a concept of what I think a nice new start menu would look like. I tried to make it simple to figure out, while incorporating both Windows 8 Modern UI elements and classic Start Menu elements,” the designer explained.

“Also, it's not shown in this picture, but for users who like the full-screen Modern UI as it exists now, they would be able to switch between this start menu interface and the regular full-screen Modern UI.”

Unfortunately, Microsoft is very unlikely to turn to such a radical approach for the Start menu, and people familiar with the matter claim that the company wants just a simple design that would only provide access to installed apps and specific system settings.

More information will, however, be provided next month and if we’re lucky, we could get the first testing build of Windows 9 sometime this year, as the development of the new OS version is expected to complete in less than 12 months before reaching RTM in early 2015.