With Microsoft’s latest operating system looming large on the digital landscape – set for a public beta launch at the end of the month – casualties are beginning to emerge.

It turns out that the launch of Windows 8 could see Microsoft’s iconic Start button going the same way as Clippy.

Now a mainstay of personal computing, the Start button was launched 17 years ago amidst a massive advertising campaign featuring the Rolling Stones song “Start me up“.

With Windows XP/Vista and 7 installed on a huge portion of PCs worldwide, the Start button has become a design icon that is effectively synonymous with the Redmond based software giant.

Sadly in Windows 8, rumours are that Microsoft has decided to kill off the Start button, with the space to be occupied by what is being called a “hot” corner.

In essence this will equate to moving the mouse pointer (if on a PC) into the corner which will fire up the new full-screen Metro-style start screen. Tablet users will be able achieve the same result by flicking their finger to the same bottom left corner of the screen.

Windows 8 will perhaps sport the most radical interface overhaul since Microsoft jumped from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95, and killing off the Start button will arguably free up more on screen real-estate.

From a cursory play with the new interface at Microsoft’s CES stand recently, the new interface may have impressed, but it is likely that many long term Windows users will find it baffling.

For first time users the news is potentially worse as there’ll be no visual cues for returning to the full-screen start menu of Microsoft’s newly minted Metro interface.

With the Windows 8 public beta due out in a couple of weeks, the Start button could possibly reappear by then, rumours are that die hard windows users shouldn’t get their hopes up.

So will there be a wake held for the soon to be deceased Start button? Will there be much of an outcry?

This remains to be seen, but the good news is that the Windows key on the keyboard of most PCs will still have the same function as it has today under Windows 8 and will pop up the Start screen – which should at least provide a solution for some frustrated users.

After the late Arfa Karim raised the nation’s pride by becoming the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, another Pakistani wonder child has made history after creating seven Microsoft and Google certified computer operating systems in a suburb of Abbottabad.

The 14-year-old student, Sikandar Mehmood Baloch, lives in Bilal Town in Abbottabad. Sikandar not only became a certified expert of 107 computer engineering languages at a young age but has also received certificates of his achievements from Microsoft and performed work for Google. He has also received 25 certificates as acknowledgement of his unique work performed for Google, the biggest search engine in the world. Sikandar is studying in the 9th grade in a local school and has made many Linux Systems (From VVS1 to VVS7) and developed an indigenous anti-virus system as well. He created a world record at the age of nine after making his first operating system. He works with many websites and earns over $70 dollars daily.

In Windows 7, there are several hidden & locked themes provided for regional countries such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States and South Africa. You can unlock these themes easily so you have more options with which to customize your Windows 7 desktop. Do checkout our collection of 70+ Themes. To unlock hidden themes do the following:

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Click Organize, and select Folder and Search Options.
3. Go to View tab.
4. Select Show hidden files, folders and drivers and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). If prompted with confirmation, click Yes.
5. Click OK.
6. Browse to the following folder \Windows\Globalization\MCT\
7. There are five folders in the name with format MCT-XX (where XX is AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA) which represents globalization settings for each region. Go into the folder that you want to activate its theme. Note: AU, CA and ZA regions have the same themes.
8. Open the Theme folder inside the selected region folder.
9. Double click on the XX.theme file to apply the theme to the Windows 7 desktop system. Once a theme is ran and activated, the theme will be remembered and saved into Personalization options, so that user can change or select the theme again directly from Personalization settings screen.
10. Now to go to Folder Options to reverse the first 5 steps to hide the hidden and protected system files and folders again.