Please - dynamic.

Let categories be a dynamic construct. The App store may have a formal categorization Model ... then let the "by categories" filter be a System (Controller) ... and the actual categories be a View. MVC for categories in the Apps list. The Model will be the normal. The View can override the presentation. We can CRUD categories from our own.

MS get the telemetry on peoples user concepts for Apps. How do they user their programs ... categorize them?

What could be better?

What could be worse? As already pointed out several times. No flex. I.e. forget formals for Start and so on. It has to be actual or virtual stuff. The problem with the Start Screen was not missing the Start Menu - but no API's to setup entry points. It's in the cloud ... no flex as it is right now. You can not take control over basic application (Start eq. role for application infrastructure i.e. what application the Windows client supports). I.e. kiosk for instance.

It's 60'ties - 70'ties School to formalize IT systems ... (too much). Allow for changes ...

To formalize, the concepts needs to be much more abstract than i.e. Start. Start is not a formal problem, but a semantic (state) problem. So an actual (runtime) problem. Same goes for categories.

"by category" have to receive an implementation for dynamics ... virtualiztation, or it will not work.

Suggestion: Make it possible to actually bind concepts to categories, i.e. create tags for categories, bind Folder names to those categories ... and let those categories be informal - i.e. named by the user. Then Microsoft can care to bind the user concepts i.e. user categories to the app stores formal categories. This way telemetry also can become practical work :o)

... hopefully, it does not end up as in my case as in Win 8.1 preview right now:

I have 10 categories with 1 or 2 shortcuts from the App store. That's it. Nothing else among hundreds of shortcuts was categorized. Even from the appstore - the biggest (non-)category is "Others" (unclassified/untagged?) ... it has 39 shortcuts. For desktop apps it must be between 100-200 shortcuts that are just shown as in by-name ...

So except for like 10-15 shortcuts ... no categorization using the "by category" view in Apps list. As it works right now ... you get a by-name view ... and some marginal categorization for 1-15 shortcuts out of i.e. may be 250 on a workstation. That means this categorization solution was capable of supporting apps with categories for only 5% of my shortcuts. That's completely irrelevant. Hopefully a plan is out to make this perform better?

The whole idea of a categorized view is a compressed view (communication). You can even argue you should be able to opt out (settings) of display linked PDF's there - i.e. only programs (apps) show.

Categories should this way become an actual or variable "layout" supporting the workflow (user or app domain knows) ...

... while the formal categories have another job as in supporting the content and e-commcerce situation at the Appstore.

1) Desktop apps

Despite update http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2863721(Windows Store app is not added to the correct category in Windows 8.1 Preview) ...allthough I have not testeduninstallingthe appsand reinstallingthemagain ...

... what about Windows Desktop apps?

Will desktop apps only be categorized if they are registered with the store?

2) As in the previous post just above

I still think it is very important for the user or the application domain of the infrastructure (i.e. Windows (client/server and any other packaging of the middleware components) to be able to actually address the naming of the categories. I.e. Also in the Start Screen (there you can select the naming of the groups yourself).

I.e. just think if you were not allowed to choose your own actual concepts ... i.e. select the naming of your file system folders referencing your workflow. Same goes for categories for programs.

So both a formal + an actual namespace please.

May be you should think about that the groups in the layout may in fact reflect a selection of programs in the Apps List. So the Apps List could provide full reflection for those many remaining apps ... in terms of the namedgGroups on the Start Screen as well.

So there can be several ways around this. Again ... as in the previous post above: Suggestion: Make it possible to actually bind concepts to categories.

... thus the flexibility. Not one way, not a determined way ... but a runtime constructive and virtual way. A "hybrid" way (take a look at the ASP.NET teams stand on lifecycle management on ASP.NET ... the hybrid way). Same goes for the Shell.

With dynamic constructs based upon the underlying formal model ... we can always infer and normalize the categorization.

Again indepth implementation of categorization and user concepts ... not just superficial. It's the Shell space ... so very important to get straight. You do not get a lot of oppertunities to just do such changes ... aka hey, here we go again and change some very central stuff about how you basically use and interact with the Shell locating and starting programs. It took like 12 years before somebody took the courage to go and change the taskbar originating with Win95.

So get it fixed. Go deep down.