Microsoft may have demonstrated its new Start menu earlier this year, but thanks to a recent “Windows 9” leak we’re now seeing every single part of the company’s plans for bringing back this popular feature. German site WinFuture has posted a two-minute video that demonstrates how the Start menu works in the next major release of Windows. As you’d expect, it’s very similar to what Microsoft demonstrated with traditional apps mixing with modern apps (and their Live Tiles) into a familiar Start menu.
A batch of leaked screenshots from the next version of Windows show just how far Microsoft will go to win back desktop users. The update, codenamed Threshold and possibly called Windows 9 or just plain Windows, takes some features from Windows 8 and grafts them onto the classic desktop. While we’ve known for some time that Windows 9 will have a pop-up Start menu and the ability to run modern apps in windowed mode, the new screenshots from Computer Base and WinFuture.de give even greater detail on how things will work. When running in windowed mode, Windows Store apps will get a button in the top-left corner. Clicking the button brings up a list of functions that previously appeared in the Charms bar, including Search, Share, Play, Project and Settings. This menu lets users switch the app to full screen mode as well. Microsoft is also adding a few new buttons to the desktop taskbar. A search button sits immediately to the right of the Start button, followed by a button for switching between multiple desktops. The latter feature, possibly called “virtual desktops,” will let users switch between several sets of desktop apps and layouts in nod to Ubuntu Linux’s longstanding “Workspaces.”
