Apparently a lot of people miss having the Start menu in Windows 8. SweetLabs’ Pokki app, which adds a Start menu and app launcher to the Windows 8 OS, has attracted 1.5 million downloads to date.

Pokki for Windows 8 launched back in mid-October and hit 500,000 downloads on Dec. 20. In just a few weeks, the app has tripled in popularity with 1.5 million downloads. And people are using it — SweetLabs said that users open the Start menu an average of 10 times a day.

“We think this is a decent indicator that Windows 8 users see value in having a Start menu, in particular our Start menu,” SweetLabs co-founder Chester Ng told VentureBeat. “When we launched the Pokki Start menu, we had the hypothesis that Windows 8 users would enjoy it more if they had easier access to their stuff. We’ve seen a tremendous uptake that validates that original hypothesis.”

Microsoft said that Windows 8 has sold 60 million licences to date, but we don’t know how many of those copies have been activated. Still, if all of those copies had been activated, Pokki would still have an incredible install base.

To celebrate the milestone, SweetLabs has updated Pokki with a refreshed interface and a brighter color scheme, which you can see in the photo above. The company said the app now has a more accurate search function. Ng puts the changes in two major categories:

• The interface has had a facelift. — “It comes down to simply making it look better. We’re leading with a light color. It’s cleaner and more readable.”
  
• There are more customization options. — “We’re giving users more control over their experience. For example, you can now replace the Pokki acorn icon with a Windows icon, which a lot of people were asking for. You can also disable hot corners.”

SweetLabs still has plans to monetize Pokki by offering paid apps that can be accessed from the app. Ng said that paid apps will likely be tested “some time this quarter.”

San Diego-based SweetLabs has more than 70 employees and has raised $21.5 million from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

Pokki via SweetLabs

Of all the confounding changes made in the latest Windows 8 consumer preview, few upset people quite as much as the removal of the Start button.

But what hasn’t been clear is why Microsoft removed the feature, which has been a central pillar of Windows for over a 15 years.

The answer might be obvious: People weren’t using it. In an interview with PCPro, Microsoft program manager Chaitanya Sareen said that as users began pinning more applications to the taskbar, start button usage took a major hit. Instead of going to Start menu to access applications, users were just clicking shortcuts. The taskbar was just too fast and convenient.

To get this user information, Microsoft used telemetry, technology that allows designers to monitor how users interact with their software. User behavior has played a major role in the development of highly controversial features like the Ribbon in Office 2007. Now, it’s being used to remove the start button.

Microsoft, then, was at a crossroads: How could it make the Start menu useful again? The idea behind the feature has always been to provide a simple and central launching point for applications and tasks. Any change to it would have to retain that capacity.

So Microsoft Metro-fied it.  Now, with Windows 8, users are given the Start Screen, a customizable home screen that allows easy access to users’ most oft-used applications. This, naturally, is something that many users will initially hate,  but, as with most controversial user interface decisions, it’s also something that most users will eventually get used to.