This morning I published an article entitled Windows 7, the case for dumping the Start Menu, that respected IT and Microsoft journalist Paul Thurrott picked up on and quoted on his site.  He commented on what I had written saying…

“Mike Halsey writes that Microsoft is very likely starting the process of removing the Start Menu from Windows in Windows 7.  I think he’s right.  But here’s the thing: Why make Windows 7 a half-way house between the past and the future? If this is a just a vestigial UI construct from the 1990′s, why not just remove it completely?” 

I was initially planning to write a follow up today but after reading Paul’s article decided he was already saying everything I planned to so changed my mind.  Unfortunately our articles seemed to start quite a row about what Microsoft was planning, who was involved and was there some sort of conspiracy about press leaks from Microsoft.  So I thought I’d better reply anyway.

Here’s what I see the situation as being…

Windows Vista was a commercial flop.  No matter how many copies Microsoft boasted about shipping, their main client, business, didn’t bother with it.  It wouldn’t run on their computers without huge additional expenditure in new hardware, and it had hardware and software incompatabilities left-right-and-centre.

The old addage of “wait for service pack 1″ held true but by the time that came Microsoft had already announced Windows 7 and by all counts they’d listened to the criticisms.  By service pack 1, Windows Vista was already considerably more compatbile with old software and hardware and I can happily report that Windows 7 is even better.

The long and the short of this is that Microsoft cannot afford for Windows 7 to be a commercial failure with businesses.  That would be a disaster for the company, especially during the current economic climate.

They also said shortly after releasing Vista that they were looking at a whole new interface structure, and we could expect a completely new way to interact with Windows by the time codename Blackcomb launched in 2010.

They’ve done this but it’s exactly as Paul has said, it’s a half way house.  They’re pushing ahead with an exciting and dynamic way of launching and managing applications and services but they’re afraid to go too far, in case big business doesn’t like the steep learning curve for all it’s staff.  With Windows 7 what we’re getting is something that will look and work exactly like Vista if you want it to, but that won’t look and work like Windows 8 because they’re too afraid to build all the functionality in at this time.

This is a shame as what Windows 7 is giving us is essentially two different ways of interacting with the OS that we’re expected to use concurrently.  I can see this causing enormous problems so I completely agree with Paul in asking for Microsoft to get on with it and build in the functionality now for those of us who are ready.  This can be done while leaving the existing structure intact to keep their business customers happy.

I had an email from Microsoft today about my suggestions on this matter saying that they thought my ideas were “interesting” but not what they wanted from Windows 7 at this moment in time.  I’m still hoping that if there’s a big enough groundswell of support for them getting on with it, they’ll indeed get on with it.

Alas, I fear I’ll be owing Paul a drink for the bet I made with him.    The reason being that no matter what contacts Paul Thurrott and I have with Microsoft, he and I are merely commentators on this, the proof being all the things Paul has asked for Microsoft to do over the years that they’ve ignored.  And while my beta tester position affords me the opportunity to feed back to Microsoft, they’re only just going to do it their own way anyhow.