This morning we posted up a few screenshots of build 8220. One major difference between this image and some of the past is that the start orb that we have all grown to love is now…gone.
As you know, Microsoft is going all out with Windows 8, it’s changing the mold and with that comes some new changes. While some may hate the changes, others may love but at the end of the day, Microsoft gets to make the call.
Now, before we go further, we have not verified this info ourselves but it comes from a heavily trusted source (Canouna and one other individual, neither of whom speak English natively) but we do know that they have builds of Windows 8 in their hands.
From what we understand, the super bar from Windows 7 remains modestly in place. The understanding is that the bar now becomes a place to pin applications (which you can already do) but that it will become more necessary than previously. Essentially, you will want to pin your most used, non-metro apps to the superbar for quick access without jumping to the metro UI.
But what about that start button, how will I get to Metro? From what we were told if you place your mouse in the left bottom corner, the start square will appear. Additionally, there are other actions to initiate the charm bar by placing your mouse in the corners too. Upfront, we heard that this is a great change.
A bit of confusions, mostly because of translation issues, but it was stated that the Charm Bar is used to launch the Metro UI. I would not take this to mean that the classic start menu is there but that it is an additional way to launch the interface, cool?
We suspect that more information about this start button-less task bar, also being referred to as the “Dock Bar” by some, will surface as early as later today.
That’s all that I know folks, now you know what we know.