Windows 8 users who are eagerly waiting for the estranged start menu will have to wait till 2015 to get their hands onto the feature, new report citing sources familiar with the development claims.
According to well-placed sources of ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, the Windows 8.1 update 2, which was to bring with it the start menu, will not be arriving until the ‘Threshold’ update – which is said to be Microsoft’s next major update and expected to release in April 2015.
“Microsoft’s operating systems group has decided to hold off on delivering a Microsoft-developed Start Menu until Threshold, the next “major” release of Windows”, notes Foley.
Foley notes that it isn’t fully clear why the update has been delayed as Microsoft is still hanging onto its strategy of adapting its latest operating system and making it friendlier for keyboard and mice users.
A mock-up of the start menu has already been shown off by Terry Myerson, Executive Vice President at Microsoft who is in charge of unified operating system group, during Build 2014; however, no release date was specified. Myerson simply said that the feature will be shipped along with the next iteration of the operating system.
One other feature which was shown off by Myerson during Build 2014 was the windowed mode for Modern UI apps, but Foley in her report claims that this feature will not make it to the operating system in Windows 8.1 update 2 and will be released sometime after that.
