Windows 7 Classic vs. New Start Menu

If you wanna see something visually pleasing why not watch a movie ? Look at some pretty pictures ..play a nice game...

But I understand. Especially if someone comes over and you wanna impress them, you could say :
- Come on. I wanna show you something. (press the start button to bring start menu) . Uuuu. Wow. What do you say ? A ? Niiiceee....
..and then. .. Let's see that again .. Uuuuu.. Niceee..
.. Come on ..DOn't go. Let's see that again .. Uuuuu....niceeeee ...

But how long till this gets old ? One month ? Six months ? . I know . There's a solution for that too. We could change themes every week.

But seriously. Why play with a start menu and not watch a movie ? Or play a real game. For people working 10 hours a day with a PC , the PC is a tool. Like a hammer . It's a button to bring in front a true nice thing - like a movie or a photo. Or a true revolutionary 3d software. Why would you want to look at the OS UI for long ?

New menu is a minor change

New START menu is a minor thing.
Worse is that nearly everything else has been changed.
For example changing this stupid 'Hide file extensions' took me 15 minutes and a lot of Googling. Chancing screen properties was another nuisance, as was chancing network configuration.

There has been a lot of changes which seem to be done just to the change something.

Okay. everything looks beatiful and streamlined and cute and pimped. Everything is fine, if you are of the iPod generation.
Still we have millions, who are not interested in the appearance. For them/us the computer is a tool, not a toy. It is annoying to spend time to learn new tricks, when you feel that there you gain nothing in them.

It makes you feel more and more that the core of the OS is still the same shit it has always been but now with 'kings new clothes'. Any changes made to the core have been lost in the mist of zillions new windowses and visual candies.

They promised us a new, faster and better core. So far I have found anything that makes a clear positive difference compared to WinXP.
( One negative more: I have an expensive dualhead VGA card in my Win7, still I can not use any of the screensavers, because 'it is uncompatible with direct3D'. In WinXP it didn't complain )

Of course you have lately damned your 'old and boorly working' WinXP, because all the updates they have made to WinXP last year have been loaded with errors and mistakes. It feels like they were made with just one tought in mind: -"Make the old version feel rotten".
The SP3 was advertised to be the best and most important update. Installation after installation I have had a growing feeling that we should downgrade back to SP2 because of the errors. After all the latest updates all my customers are complaining about a noticeable slowdown. A 2.4GHz PC feels more like an old 1.2GHz, or even worse. In a matter of fact my own 2.4GHz/2GB WinXP is about now as slow as my 1.2GHz/1GB Win7 after I updated XP to SP3. The best thing to do is to remove XP SP3 and reinstall either XP SP2 or Linux.

In the beginning I was rather enthusiastic with Win7 but not any more.

sebastian___ said:

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Um, ok. I don't remember when I've ever wanted to impress someone with the look of my operating system. I was simply making the point that if you spend a lot of time using the computer then it should be an enjoyable experience - not really a valid point about watching a movie or looking at pictures to please the eye. I would much prefer having a nice looking OS as it's always there in your sight when you're using the computer, for what ever reason; recreation, work etc. Why shouldn't it be pleasently presented? As you said, you're a graphics designer so you prefer the classic menu to avoid inspiration being detracted from the OS. Fair point I guess, but there's not exactly a large amount of obvious graphical detail going on to take away anything from your work (unless you design OS themes perhaps). Surely it would make working on the computer a more enjoyable experience for you, using something that isn't so disgustingly boring, as I would imagine a lot of your time is spent on one.

Matteus - You're right . Why shouldn't an OS have a nice interface ? It should have the best UI. The problems is - ever noticed how different people tend to choose different cars (clothes and so on).

How can Microsoft design a single UI (with so few choices) for everybody ? Who can design such a universal UI ? We are not the same. Each one has a distinct personality - and maybe has a unique way to dealing with their computer. We should have some choices. I know that we can change a few things in Windows 7. But far too few - if you think there are billions of people using it.

new menu! it would be cool to be able to switch between both tho...

Main menu -the most important thing in the world ?

sw3rve said:

new menu! it would be cool to be able to switch between both tho...

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Please do forget the new menu of the BETA version !
This main menu is a minor thing. There is so much more important things in the new OS.
If yo just keep on chewing this one thing, I get a feeling that you are purposefull trying to lead people thinking that there is nothing more in an OS but the looks of the main menu.
Another possibility is that you do not use any other parts of the OS.

mistofeles said:

Please do forget the new menu of the BETA version !
This main menu is a minor thing. There is so much more important things in the new OS.
If yo just keep on chewing this one thing, I get a feeling that you are purposefull trying to lead people thinking that there is nothing more in an OS but the looks of the main menu.
Another possibility is that you do not use any other parts of the OS.

Click to expand...

... i like the new menu. i have it looking just like xp i dont see the problem with it. lol

i was just saying it wouldnt be hard for ms to make it switchable.

New menu, suggestions

sw3rve said:

... i like the new menu. i have it looking just like xp i dont see the problem with it. lol

i was just saying it wouldnt be hard for ms to make it switchable.

Click to expand...

I kinda like this new Start-menu. Except:
- The name of the menu should be visible and not this 'windows flag in circle'. It is damned hard to describe to an user in the phone, what to do, when you dont have a explicit name for a thing. Some doesn't even know the word 'menu'. They think it is something in a restaurant.
- There should also be the computer name. It is annoying to go thru Start + (rc)Computer + Properties + Computer Name every time you come to fix a computer
- Start menu icon should be relocatable on the backgound like any other window and pinned to the taskbar.
- Start menu icon should be relocatable in the taskbar
- It should be resizable by mouse. When there is a long list of programs and directories, it wold be nice to make it large to see and reorganize it
- The panels should be like in WInXP: AllPrograms list right. When you have many programs in the list and it (HOPEFULLY ?) is built in two or more columns, it works better, if it was in the right panel.
- There should be a LOCK icon to keep the menu not disappearing, when you want to do something there. Better still, if it could be opened, maximized and closed like any other window.
- Cut-and-Paste. It would make organizing easier, if you could drag-and-drop commands, directories and files to the menu

All together: Start Menu should work like any other window.
For those who were here with Windos 1.0 - Windows 3.11, this might be familiar. There was no START menu. There was this MAIN window, which contained the tools most often needed.

The Taskbar should have separators between toolbars. There should be either separators or separate colour backgrounds for toolbars ! ! ! ! ! !

So mistofeles, you say that you like everything about the new start menu except everything about the new start menu??????

What I don't understand is how can someone say this new menu is more advanced if it can't be customized ? I mean .. isn't this the power ? To be able to make it how you want ? When will this be possible ? In windows 9 ? windows 14 ?

Take a look at Autodesk 3ds max 2010 . They also made a radical change on the menu and UI. But I think that would be a truly advanced menu - because THAT CAN be CHANGED . You can change it with ease and you can make it including like it was before.

Instead Microsoft says : Here are the new and most advanced UI. But you can't do that . Also that isn't possible with the new menu. Aamm...that is not possible either.

I liked the menu in Vista a lot and the Windows 7 has taken it a step further. Nonetheless, I can live with either Vista or Windows 7, they are almost identical in a lot of ways.

JohnCiber said:

I vote for the new.
I like it.

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Only thing I have to say on the subject is all the other windows versions had the classic start menue -even windows vista as an option . Windows 7 dont unless you go through a few hoops to make it so
I even though I started out on Windows 3.1 like the new start menue

New is far better once you get used to i t

This is my second post on this subject. I've been using the Windows 7 beta ever since it came out. I still have XP x64 dual booting on my system along with it. However, I don't use XP at all any more because I like 7 so much. But no matter how much I like it I still don't like the new start menu. The Classic Start Menu is just easier to use and I want it back. I don't like having to scroll the All Products menu. I love the way the Classic menu pops into view all at once.

Also I don't like having program icons pinned to the taskbar. With them pinned there if I have a few programs running the taskbar has icons all the way across it. I prefer to have only the ones I am currently using there like in earlier versions of Windows. This is easy enough to remedy and I have it tweaked just the way I like it accept for the start menu which I have no control over. Please give me back my Classic.

Call me someone who likes to hang on to the old stuff if you want. I really am not like that at all. I like everything about Windows 7 accept this.

I really like the Windows 7 start menu and taskbar.

Much beter then the crappy old look

Actually I liked the Vista Taskbar (no vote for you sorry pollster) I liked the rounded look and the standard default Icons (Network, Power, Sound ect.) were more glance friendly I do like some of the features of the new task bar but over all the Vista one is much better we've made many post's on the partner forums about the lack of glanceability and functionality of the mono chrome lack of glanceing function (network activity, current charge ect) to the new task but they've fallen on very deaf ears I'm sure some one will make replacements

HeadCase said:

Always prefered the Classic Start Menu. Not because its been there for ages, or for its looks, but because I found a way to make it my own.

I simply clear out all the shortcuts Windows, Office, and other random programs want to place above the All Programs list.
Create my own categorized folders like Programming, Multimedia, 3D/CAD, Games, System Tools, and a little shortcut for Windows Explorer. Then I place all my shortcuts where I want, easy to find, and completly ignore the All Programs list. Eliminating the ever expanding menu mess.

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Quoted for truth. You use an identical workflow to me.

Bring back customisable expanding/tree menus!

All of the features in the new start menu are completely redundant for me, absolutely useless. It's not a program menu, it's a complete mess.

You can Link Removed.

So you have the features of the new menu AND the classic start menu side by side.

• Features of the new menu:
• recent opened programs
• pinned programs
• jumplists
• special links (right area of start menu)
• search bar

• Bad in new menu:
• All programs: louvre opened menu
• Reduced space for "All programs" menu by start menu, often scrolling is needed
• Search bar without "history"

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• Features of classic menu:
• Laterally opened menu without mouse click, no scrolling is needed
• Menus uses full screen height

• Bad in classic menu:
• No recent opened programs
• No jumplist
• No search bar

I love new Aero Start Menu because when you roll over with your mouse pointer it will show you full screen programs running with in a thumbnail size. Here is the Screenshot of it.

Link Removed - Invalid URL

anand1 said:

I love new Aero Start Menu because ... Here is the Screenshot of it.

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But your screen shot don't show the start menu - it shows the taskbar.