Rumor: Microsoft removes live tile environment from ‘Windows 9’ for desktops

Microsoft is pulling the Metro environment with live tiles from the desktop version of the next Windows version. Windows RT, on the other hand, would no longer get a desktop and would only rely on the ‘Modern UI’ environment with the large tiles. There would also be a notification center there.

In addition to the notification center, digital assistant Cortana is also in the next version of Windows RT, writes the usually reliable Winbeta.org. With the desktop version of ‘Windows 9’, which is currently codenamed Threshold, the live tiles would be in the start menu, a setup that Microsoft showed itself in April. Apart from the desktop, there is no longer an environment with live tiles in the operating system.

According to Winbeta, this splits the following Windows into two versions: one with only the live tiles environment and one with only the desktop. It’s unknown what that will mean for tablets with Intel processors: they can run the live tiles environment, but then they wouldn’t have access to legacy Windows applications and would have to rely on the Windows Store for new programs.

According to Winbeta, the live tiles will be interactive and users could therefore extract information from the app without opening it. The charms bar with options will be missing in the next version of Windows, forcing developers to move functions such as searching within the app elsewhere in the interface.

Rumors about the next version of Windows have been circulating for months. An initial preview for users should be online at the end of September or early October, while the final version should be released in the spring of next year.