Dear Desktop users, meet the new Start Menu, it just got bigger

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First, let me start by saying these are my thoughts and my thoughts alone and I do not work in the Windows team. Second, this post is targeted towards desktop users who don’t have a touch screen and who prefer to stay most of the time in the desktop world. Third, this is about the start screen and start menu only and no other aspects of the OS(s).

Having made that clear, here I go.

I have been reading a lot of discussion going on in the web over the removal of start button and start menu in windows 8. While most folks are excited about the new windows 8 start screen, a few are of the opinion that it slows them down. I will try to prove them wrong via this post. Now the below is a snapshot of a windows 7 start menu. 

It typically contains a bunch of programs like outlook, word, media player, a browser etc and a bunch of links to folders like Documents, Music etc. The highlight of the windows start menu at least for me was the search box in it. In fact, I had gotten so used to it, pressing windows key, typing something and hitting enter had become muscle memory. And yea, there is also an “All Programs” item which can be used to launch many other programs but I prefer using search box to this item.

To summarize there are five things about the start menu that folks use on a regular basis

  1. Launching - Clicking a button at the left-bottom corner of the screen or hitting windows key.
  2. Pinned Programs - Launch the programs pinned to it with a single click(8-10 programs on average)
  3. Folders – Open Documents folder with a single click. (and Music, Favorites, Videos, Computer etc)
  4. Search - Has an amazing search box which can be used to search for almost anything in the computer.
  5. All Programs – Used to launch non pinned items but takes several clicks.  

 Now, in windows 8, there are several awesome windows store apps that work brilliantly with mouse and keyboard. I use them on a regular basis. But for those who are going to be mainly living in the desktop world and want their start screen back, I have some good news - the start menu has in fact become larger and is now called the start screen. There is nothing significant that the start menu in windows 7 used to do that the new start screen cannot (but the reverse is obviously not true). Now, have a look at the picture below, you can see I have mimicked the structure of the start menu in the start screen. And there is scope of pinning more desktop programs over here.

Now let’s do a compare of the earlier points shall we

Action

How to do it

Comparison with old start menu

Launching

Click on left-bottom corner or hitting windows key

Practically no difference (Let’s assume someone told you about the hot corners or you saw the instructions when setting up your new pc)

Pinned programs

Single click on tile to launch

Many more programs can be pinned compared to start menu

Folders

Single click on tile to launch

Many more folders can be pinned compared to start menu

Search

Start typing on the start screen and search box will appear automatically

Now you can search not just in the computer but web as well(inside windows store apps as well, but we are talking desktop users here)

All Programs

Right-Click and Click “All apps” - all your programs appear. Click on any to launch.

Earlier, the simplest case involved two clicks and the worst case involved many. Now, in most cases you wouldn’t need it because start screen now has much larger area to pin all the programs you want. Still, if you have something that you haven’t pinned, it requires no more than three clicks.(check the below screenshot)

 

 

As you can see the windows 8 start screen is either better or is same as the start menu of windows 7 in all respects. So, put to rest all the worries about start screen slowing you down because it doesn’t. It just got bigger and better.

You need more reasons to upgrade? Well, I will just give 8 reasons but there are several others. And if I start talking about using the windows store apps then I can give 88 plus reasons. But let’s stick to pure desktop users.

  1. Did you check out the boot times – absolutely amazing
  2. The new explorer
  3. The cute yet powerful new task manager
  4. Better battery life
  5. Better copy paste experience
  6. Inbuilt ISO and VHD reading
  7. Inbuilt USB 3.0 support
  8. Sync settings across machines

I use three pcs at work and one at home. Out of these one is a hybrid-laptop (touch and type), one works on dual-monitor, one is a powerful machine which hosts several VMS and the last one is a netbook. All of these now run on Windows 8 and I have never been so satisfied with an OS. I urge all the desktop users to give windows 8 start screen a try, you will be surprised at how much you will like it. And at 40$ for an upgrade, it’s a steal.