Complaining to Microsoft as an individual consumer will do no good. They shut out consumers opinion and concerns a long time ago. Complaining to computer manufacturers who sell pre-loaded OS computers and are a large portion of the OS sales might be a better approach. Tell the company you want a computer but make it known the dysfunctional MS Start Menu is a big problem.
I was seriously considering buying a new desktop tower soon. I'm using W/8 now and depended on and use Classic Shell. A recent Refresh and reloading of all non MS programs reminded me of just how much I really hate the MS Menu. With Classic Shell no longer possible when I do buy a tower the next OS I purchase will not be from Microsoft.
You are correct and there’s a larger issue that one might call cynical or even sinister.
Microsoft, obviously, is a publicly traded company. With each new version of Windows - whether the public wants the new version or not - Microsoft starts bragging to Wall Street about market share and uptake of its new OS - with the obvious wink-wink nudge-nudge to investors that Microsoft’s future results will be solid because their new Windows has, say, 30% of market.
This is evidenced best by two items:
1) Microsoft riding herd on PC manufacturers to offer the newest OS even if it’s an unstable, bug-ridden, security nightmare. Microsoft would even prefer that OEMs stop offering the legacy OS altogether.
2) Microsoft’s disastrous - for them and the user base - attempt to force (push) an automatic, overnight upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It bricked computers in some cases; rendered untold number of applications and utilities, many of them expensive, useless; and annoyed one and all with its Big Brother tactics.
Similar to Classic Shell, one intrepid developer wrote a utility to wipe all traces of the Windows 10 nag icon and messages and to exclude it from Windows Updates. Once again, MS is less interested in computing and more interested in selling soap.
Fortunately, the OEMs had a bit more business sense and plain old humanity and have been offering Windows 7 for quite some time despite Microsoft’s wishes.
Imagine that: Microsoft had a stable, usable, widely-accepted version of Windows that was reasonably secure. Their overriding instinct was to trash it.