So, Geek fans, are you excited about the impending arrival of theWindows 9 Preview? Sure you are. You know who else is excited? Microsoft China. So excited, in fact, that they pulled the trigger on a Windows 9 teaser post on their corporate Weibo account today.
It was quickly taken down, but not before the vigilant staffers of Cnbeta snatched a screengrab.
No important details like pricing or availability were actually confirmed, but the post did ask one important question: “do you think the Start Menu will come back to the bottom left corner?”Now, it’s not as if we actually need additional confirmation that Windows 9 was going to resurrect the Start Menu. Microsoft showed it off way back in April at the BUILD conference, complete with an array of Live Tiles — proof that Metro elements can actually be integrated into the Desktop without looking like a ham-handed attempt to mash two disparate UIs together.
And with all the other tweaks we’ve heard confirmed — windowed Metro apps on the desktop, the removal of the Charms bar — pointing to a more straightforward and familiar desktop, well, the Start Menu is definitely going to return in Windows 9. You can’t blame the social networking crew at Microsoft China for trying to play it coy, however.
The only other thing that the post hinted at was the fact that Windows 9 is coming soon. We’ve heard as much from a couple of sources before. First it was a broad late September/early October predication, then a more definite date: September 30th.That’s supposed to be the day that Microsoft publicly announces the Windows 9 Preview, and presumably the day that enterprise partners and developers will get access to the download.
That also means that you’ll find the Windows 9 Preview all over torrent sites within an hour or so of the official downloads going live.