Start Button To Be MIA In Windows 8 RTM

There have been conflicting rumours on whether the classic Windows Start button / Orb in Windows 8 could be enabled in the final Release To Manufacturing (RTM) version, mainly in order to ease the transition for businesses. Indeed, there have been various hacks and utilities to bring back this menu in one form or another for the first two beta releases of Windows 8, but mysteriously, none of these now work for the latest Release Preview released two days ago.

It appears that this is because Microsoft is abandoning this easy transition for businesses – essentially giving up on them, in favour of the consumer market. Microsoft has apparently been ripping out all the code related to the Start button, making it a Metro only experience, even on the server version of Windows 8.

Given the reluctance of the worldwide business sector to upgrade from Windows XP to this day, it appears that Microsoft must see the burgeoning consumer sector as more profitable and is therefore catering more so to them instead and the trend towards handheld portable devices such as tablets and smartphones. This is at the expense of the legacy desktop/business style environment that they have always aimed their products at – and made them their fortune – hence the permanent loss of the Start button. There are a great number of users out there who hate the new Metro interface and refuse to upgrade because of it, so how many desktop and business sales Microsoft lose over this decision remains to be seen, but eventually only Windows 8 will be available to buy anyway, so consumers and businesses won’t have a choice. Don’t let go of that copy of Windows 7 yet, people…