Microsoft Corp. will not be adding the desktop start menu feature to Windows 8 until 2015.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company had reportedly planned to include the feature in an update that would be launched in August this year, according to PCWorld.
Sources familiar with Microsoft said the pop-menu will instead be included in Threshold, which has been referred to as the next "major" version of Windows.
Threshold may end up being called Windows 9, and is expected to be available in April 2015, ZDNet reported.
There will be several differences between the new start menu and the Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7 start menus. The menu is expected to have familiar features while also including elements of Windows 8's Metro-Style Start screen.
Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft, said earlier that the new start menu will return in the "next iteration" of Windows, Utah People's Post reported.
He said the menu would also return with a windowing system for Windows Store apps.
Myerson, who is in charge of the unified operating system group, demonstrated a Start Menu mock-up at Microsoft's Build conference in early April, ZDNet reported. He did not say whehter the menu would be brought back with Threshold or Windows 8.1 Update 2. However, leaks that come out later that month showed that the menu was planned to be part of Update 2.
Myerson also introduced in April a new way to get Metro-Style/Windows Store apps to run in windows on the Desktop.
The mock-up showed apps and folders, as well as a search bar that appears on the desktop. A collection of Live Tiles for Windows Store apps were also shown. The Start Menu is expected to let laptop and desktop PC users avoid the full-screen Start interface, which was introduced by Microsoft in Windows 8, PCWorld reported.
There are several unofficial replacements for the start menu that are currently available, including Classic Shell 4.0, Start8 and Pokki.
