Windows 10 Start Menu Explained

With the launch of Windows 10 comes a brand new Start Menu, which now more closely resembles its predecessors - something that's good news for many users on desktop and notebooks PCs. However, the new Windows 10 Start Menu brings plenty of options for tweaking, along with the odd glitch.

Windows 10 Start Menu Customizable

When Windows 8 was released, the lack of a Start Menu angered and confused many PC enthusiasts. As such, many third-party Start Menu programs were developed to replace the 'metro' style interface with a more traditional look. The good news is that the majority these programs continue to work with Windows 10, and should not require any reinstallation or reconfiguration. So, if you still prefer a third-party Start Menu to what is currently being offered in Windows 10, there's lot of options to choose from - Classic Shell is probably one of the most popular.

That said, Microsoft appears to have listened to users this time around, and has allowed for much more customization of the new Windows 10 Start Menu. Some of these tweaks are relatively simple; for example, you can easily resize the new Windows 10 Start Menu by moving the mouse cursor to the top or right edge of the menu until an arrow appears, and then drag it to resize. It is a bit fiddly, and you will usually need to alter the height and the width of the menu separately.

Live Tiles Straightforward To Manage

You may also want to make changes to the "Live Tiles" in the Start Menu, which are the square boxes that appear to the right and with continually updated information displays. Some of the key ways to do this are:

• Click and drag a tile to rearrange its position. You can also click and drag a tile to the bottom of the menu to create a new category.
   
• Right-click a tile and select "Resize" to choose between one of four sizes.
   
• Right-click a tile and select "Unpin from Start" to remove it from the menu. If you don't want any live tiles in your Start Menu, you can remove them all in this manner, then resize the Start Menu appropriately.
   
• You can also add a new tile by right-clicking on an application name in the "All Apps" section on the left of the Start Menu.

There's also a minor bug to watch out for: at the moment the Start Menu can only list 512 entries in the "All apps" list. Fortunately that doesn't affect most users. For those who do, the only solutions right now are to use a third-party Start Menu replacement or wait for Microsoft to release a fix, which is in the works. (Source: itproportal.com)

What's Your Opinion?

If you're using Windows 10, what do you think of the Start Menu? Did you use a replacement menu in Windows 8 and do you plan on keeping this in Windows 10? Has Microsoft made it simple enough to understand how the menus work?