Microsoft showed off the future of Windows this week at its 2014 Build developer conference, and it looks pretty retro. In fact, it looks a lot like Windows 7.

During a tease of some possible new features in a future update, Microsoft's executive vice-president of operating systems Terry Myerson revealed a tool that users will recognize from previous versions of Windows: a Start menu. He also showed that users would soon be able to run Modern — aka "Metro" — apps (those apps you buy in the Windows Store with touch-oriented full-screen interfaces) within individual windows on the desktop.

In other words, it's exactly how Windows used to work.

"Honestly I'm not really surprised," said one Build attendee, a developer from a major software company who didn't want to be named. "The new UI hadn't really caught on. There was a lot of user backlash. And let's be honest: Metro apps aren't the biggest draw."

Microsoft was going in this direction already. The latest Windows 8.1 Update reasserts some of the old-school desktop tools, such as the Windows taskbar, as well as buttons for close and minimize, which will now appear in Modern apps.

A new Start menu, along with windows for Modern apps, takes the Windows 8 retrograde to another level. It's tantamount to an admission from Microsoft that the approach it took with Windows 8 was a mistake; that tiled, touch-first interfaces simply don't work very well on traditional PCs like laptops.

That wasn't the party line when Microsoft debuted Windows 8 in the fall of 2012. At the time, the design philosophy implied desktop tools like the Start menu and taskbar were antiquated in an ever-connected world. And signposts such as permanent icons for power and search were simply unnecessary — just noisy "chrome" that distracts you from whatever you happen to be doing.

That's dead wrong, according to user-experience designer Jesse James Garrett, chief creative officer of Adaptive Path, a design consulting firm. Garrett believes the whole approach of Windows 8 was broken from the start.

"It was just too different," he said. "I think they made a lot of decisions that make complete sense if you're bringing a completely new tablet OS to market. But the PC experience is loaded with expectations that go back decades. That was completely up-ended by what they put in front of people."

Killing the Start menu is probably the most revealing example of why Microsoft's approach irritated users. In Windows 8, the Start screen was intended to be a supercharged version of Start menu. Adapting it for touch, with smart, visual notifications in the form of live tiles, seemed like an idea that couldn't lose.

"The [Start menu] was a touchstone, an anchor you could always come back to," Garrett said. "The Start screen isn't an obvious analog to the Start menu. It's visually so complex that people get lost. Without the anchor, it creates friction for users."

Microsoft appears to have seen the error it made in merging a touch experience with a mouse-and-keyboard machine. It began to reverse course in Windows 8.1, bringing back the Start button (although it only served to return to the Start screen) and giving users the option to boot to the desktop.

Image: Mashable, Pete Pachal

With the 8.1 Update and the future changes Myerson showed, Microsoft is separating its conjoined OS twins even further. Windows, as a desktop interface, will be more or less back to normal (tablets will remain Modern-first).

"I think the initial idea to combine desktop and tablet was a mistake because it assumed that tablets would be the next evolution of the desktop," said Coty Beasley, a senior user-experience designer with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. "That idea certainly didn’t take hold in the way Microsoft was expecting."

The Tablet Dilemma

Did it have to be this way? Why didn't Microsoft just launch Modern/Metro as a tablet-only OS, and leave the desktop well enough alone?

As a counterexample, Apple never tried to unite a tablet and desktop interface. CEO Tim Cook even famously compared the hybrid devices that resulted from such a pairing to "refrigerator-toasters." Some UI elements from iOS have made their way into OS X, but the iPad a decidedly different ecosystem from the Mac and OS X. This approach has worked out pretty well.

Microsoft was in a completely different market position, however. It wanted — needed — to jump-start its tablet platform, and it decided that leveraging the full power of the company's Windows developer base was the best way. Unfortunately, PC users were taken along for what ended up being a bumpy ride.

"I think the problem with Windows 8 all along has been that nothing about it was driven by user need," Garrett said. "Don’t get me wrong — I think they did a great job in creating a touch UI, but coupling it with a legacy desktop didn't make sense."

Microsoft's Windows 8 experiment wasn't necessarily a complete disaster. It hasn't helped PC sales, but it did generate developer interest in Modern apps, and it let Microsoft unite all of its consumer-facing platforms under a single standard called Universal Windows Apps. Now, if you develop for Windows, 90% of the code is the same when go from one kind of device to another, according to Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft's vice-president of developer platform and evangelism.

Modern Age

However, if Microsoft keeps shrinking the presence of the Modern UI on desktop PCs — the kinds of machines that constitute the vast majority of Windows devices on the market — what incentive will there be for developers to keep working there?

"The big advantage on Metro now is you can re-use the code for mobile devices and platforms," said Alexander Kohler, a developer for Direct Mail House. "I can address many more platforms now than I could before. Developing an app now isn't about Metro or not Metro. It's about, 'How many clients am I going to address?'"

Kohler is hinting at other side to the argument: If Modern apps will soon be able to run within windows, desktop users just might start downloading them. A few might even pay for the privilege.

"It seems people who use Windows 8 don't use Metro apps a ton," said Kellen Sunderland, who does development for Nokia and VideoLAN project, which makes the VLC player. "So targeting mouse and keyboard users should drive up those adoption rates."

Running Modern apps in a desktop window may be a tough sell for users. Modern Evernote, for example, is optimized for touch, with simplified tiles and icons — just like you'd want on a tablet. It's difficult to see the advantage for a desktop user over, say, the web app.

Given those different experiences, once the Start menu is back and the desktop is king again, Microsoft may find itself back in the same position it was in before Windows 8: With a big desktop user base that sees little to no value in having a Windows tablet ecosystem present on their machines.

The troubled story of Windows 8 isn't over yet. It may still have a happy ending because it ultimately gave Microsoft a toehold in the tablet market. However, all the backpedalling exposes the folly of letting market strategy govern product development. Pleasing developers and breaking into new markets are important, but if they take hold of the process, they have a tendency to blur the end goal: Making products people actually want to use.

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