I have a feeling that Microsoft may be doing their usual "demanding" on this one and when Windows 8.1 comes out I'm going to be very wary of allowing it to upgrade.
It is clear that despite end users wishes for a proper Start Menu in Windows 8 - Microsoft have ignored this request and are just putting a start button on which takes you back into the Start Screen. To me that is a pain in the backside and useless as most of the time I use multiple programs on the desktop and I don't want the entire screen covered up just so I can use another program and then have to go back into the desktop time and time again. I want a simple small menu at the side that I can just click the windows icon and load an extra program into the main screen, just like Start8 does, and like Linux has done for years. Even Android has a menu system at the bottom left that shows previously run programs and allows you to easily switch between the various ones without taking over the entire screen on the Motorola Xoom, so I don't know how Microsoft are trying to make it more like a "tablet" with this new start screen.
Anyway in the past any technology that Microsoft has disagreed with has been stopped by Windows. The biggest one was back in Windows 95 - Bleem the Playstation Emulator was working fine, although Sony was a bit annoyed that it was a program that was able to run the same software that the Playstation could (even though it wasn't actually based on their code so when they took Bleem to court they found out they couldn't do them as it wasn't using a PSX rom it was just doing similar things to a PSX - like WINE in Linux). Then Microsoft released Windows 98 and for some strange reason when you tried to run any version of Bleem in Windows 98 you got a message from Microsoft stating this program is incompatible and cannot run. Very strange how that specific program was purposefully blocked by Microsoft and I wonder how much Sony paid MS for doing that? Of course it was at that point that the Bleem developers realised they were fighting a losing battle (not to mention the amount of money they were wasting keep fighting Sony in the courts even though Sony were losing all the time) they called it a day and so possibly the best Playstation Emulator came to an end.
So is Microsoft trying this trick again, they don't want the start menu, they don't want people to have access to a start menu, so let's put a start button in the way and block all these programs that create Start Menus. But why do that to the end consumer? Is it just that Microsoft are really arrogant and think we've got this new idea and we want to force our ideas on to you regardless of whether you like it or hate it - they did that with Microsoft Office and the awful "ribbons" which is why I switched to OpenOffice - at least in OpenOffice I know where my file, edit, view, insert menus, etc are instead of playing for 30 minutes a game of hunt for the correct ribbon.
Also is this "Start" hint going to be always on top of the desktop - if so that's going to be such a nuisance, especially if it's still the same size it is currently when it pops up. It's a lot bigger than the taskbar or start menu and having that taking over part of the screen is just going to be such a distraction and nuisance (I have ADHD so anything like that can be a real distraction), the taskbar and old start menu/start8 start menu isn't that bad a destraction because it blends in and isn't too big, but the start hint is an awful purple cube that takes over a massive corner of the screen.
One thing I do realise is Microsoft is run by Bill Gates who, like me, has Asperger's Syndrome, and people with Asperger's Syndrome do have a tendency to try and enforce their view on other people and find it hard to understand why the other people don't get it. The only other thing that doesn't make any sense though is also people with Asperger's are resilient to change, so even though clearly he is trying to enforce his view on everyone that you must use the start screen and like it, why has he changed the OS so much to make other people with Asperger's absolutely despise it and do all he can to prevent software that creates things like Start menus from working. I could understand it if Windows 8 couldn't work with a Start Menu because of the way it's programmed without some major overhauling, but it can and your program proves that.
