text: - Apr 25, 2012 1:00 am UTC
  Illustration by Aurich Lawson	Windows 8's new user interface has proven nothing short of polarizing. The hybrid operating system pairs a new GUI concept, the touch-friendly Metro interface, to the traditional windows, icons, menus, and pointer concept that Windows users have depended on for decades. In so doing, it removes Windows mainstays such as the Start button and Start menu.
  The Start screen in all its glory The behavior of Windows 8 when running and switching between applications has not changed much. When it comes to launching applications, however, the changes are unavoidably in-your-face.
  The traditional Windows 7 Start menu The traditional Start menu doesn't just depend on pinned programs. It devotes much of its space to programs that you use regularly, using some algorithm to determine which applications make the grade and in which order they appear. On the one hand, this means that the Start menu is automatically populated with icons for programs that you use often. On the other hand, its appearance becomes unpredictable—applications can bubble up onto the list or drop off out of sight. The pinned area, controlled by the user (applications can't pin themselves on installation), remains more controlled.
  The Windows 7 Start menu with a bunch of settings changed The Start screen has no recently used feature, but it allows a much greater number of applications to be pinned and positioned in 2D space. This makes it more predictable—the system won't discard a program icon unexpectedly because it thinks you use something else more often—but it also means that more care must be taken to actually organize the page the way you want. Applications also get pinned automatically when installed.
  The Windows XP (and below) approach to All Programs wasn't much good either. All Programs has never been much fun. In Windows XP and below, the regular flyout menus scaled atrociously. Systems with lots of software installed would have menus so tall that they filled the entire screen and then some, spilling into multiple columns. This was particularly exciting when you had so many entries that they ran into the right-hand edge of the screen, at which point they started opening to the left.
  Windows 7's Start Menu had plenty of flaws. I have no idea which of those icons is what. The Start screen's All Programs—or rather, All Apps, as every program is now an "app" these days—takes some steps forward and some back. It makes better use of space than the menus in Windows Vista and Windows 7, especially as the Start screen supports "semantic zoom." But it can still be unwieldy if you have an enormous number of programs installed. At least it doesn't degrade into backwards-opening menus the way Windows XP could, but it will unfortunately still truncate program names.
  The All Apps view is really pretty decent, compared to Microsoft's prior efforts in this area Overall, it works quite well, but it has one peculiar drawback that might just be an oversight: there's apparently no way to dismiss it. If you decide that you want to back out and return to the regular start screen, there's no "back" button (as in the Windows Vista and Window 7 Start menu) or other provision to revert. You can use the standard system features to bring up the Start screen—the charms or the Windows key or the hot corner—but to me, at least, this feels unnatural. All Apps is, logically, a part of the Start screen, just a sort of different mode. I don't intuitively expect the charms to undo that mode switch.
  If you just type in the name of a Control Panel thing, you won't find it, because it only searches apps by default. Not so with Windows 8, which has three filtered search views ("apps," which is the default, "settings," and "files"). If you really want to search files rather than apps, you have to type your search term, hit tab to switch the focus to the right-hand bar, then down arrow to select files, then tab again to move to the file selector. Sure, you could use the mouse, but the great joy of searchable Start is that you don't have to lift your hands from the keyboard. The lack of customizability is a great shame; I would much prefer to have a "search all" that grouped its results into apps, settings, and files.
  You have to explicitly pick Settings from the sidebar. This is a step backward. As different as the Start screen looks, it performs the same function as the Start menu, and it performs it in substantially the same way. Some problems it solves a little better, some a little worse, but what it doesn't do is require any great shift in how programs are launched.
  Windows 7's Start Menu has never been very usable if you delve into "All Programs" It's not perfect, but neither is the Start menu. Having used Windows 8 quite a bit for a number of weeks (not quite full-time, but routinely, for hours each day), I think the Start screen works at least as well as the Start menu ever did. Once Windows 8 Metro apps become more abundant and my pinned apps thus become more useful, I think the Start screen will be a clear winner.