Windows 8 Start Menu Shows Metro User Interface Creeping In

Another day, another Windows 8 screenshot released by Microsoft. This time, the company has revealed a new Start menu that sports the “Metro” user interface found in Windows phones and elsewhere in Windows 8.

The new Start menu appeared in a video that focused mostly on Windows 8’s treatment of ISO and VHD files, as Engadget noted. In the menu, options for “Search,” “Share,” “Devices,” and “Settings” are clad in the white Metro font on a black background, while the rest of the menu uses the traditional black-on-white look of Windows 7.

The contrast between these two styles is striking — and an eyesore, in my opinion — and underscores how challenging it will be for Microsoft to merge its new Metro interface with the classic look. Microsoft should either commit more fully to Metro in the desktop version of Windows 8 or scale it back.

Start screen aside, the Metro UI also appears in Windows 8’s welcome screen, as revealed in April. And of course, Windows 8’s tablet interface is fully Metrofied (for lack of a better term), with big rectangular grids of information spread across the screen.

Microsoft has been slowly peeling back the layers of Windows 8 on its Building Windows 8 blog, showing off a revamped Windows Explorer and improvements to file transfers, among other tidbits. Many more Windows 8 details are expected at Microsoft’s Build conference this month.

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