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Lots of people have bemoaned Windows 8 for ditching the traditional start menu for the big, tile-based ‘start screen’. Hell, Samsung’s even bundling an app that gives you a classic start menu with new machines. But there is a start menu, of sorts, hidden within Windows 8. You just need to know where to look.
As pointed out by Microsoft-News, if you go down into the bottom left-hand corner of your screen and right click, you’re presented with a pop-up menu that looks like a bastardised ‘classic’ start menu from the days of Windows XP. It’ll appear on pretty much any Windows 8 machine, including those running Windows RT like the Surface. It’s not exactly the start menu you know and, err, love, but it’s better than nothing, right? [Microsoft-News via TNW]
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Just because it appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, its not a start menu. That’s nothing like the common start menu
Also, CTRL+X.
The first thing I did after getting Win 8 was printing out a list of all the keyboard shortcuts. Never have there been so many useful keyboard shortcuts in a system designed for touch screens
Windows-X, you mean.
Ctrl-X would (depending on context) normally be “cut”.
Yeah, Win-X, sorry
i have to say, after messing around with a win8 laptop the other day that i will happily let win8 slide by. possibly the first version of windows since 3.1 that i havent installed on one of my machines.
unless i buy a windows tablet at some point. for power users it was garbage.
No, for power users, it’s possibly even better than Windows 7, precisely because, as mentioned above, it has so many shortcut keys.
If you’re unable to get by without the start menu, you’re not much of a power user.
not talking about that. i still use ‘windows+R control’ etc but it wasnt for me, it was for one of our less technical guys (as a developer and designer i would say im pretty much a power user
).
things just seemed to take longer for me that with win7 and its a much better environment too IMO. the fact it wouldnt work with his offices laser printer meant i just stuck win7 on anyway. it was just to see what it was like and i saw virtually no redeeming features. even stuff like windows update kept fucking up.
the 2 sets of IE etc will just confuse the hell out of non-techies. the fact you need to use shortcuts to use windows is a big fail.
i was considering getting my dad a surface tablet but if its the same BS with the menus then i will not. he has parkinsons and onset of dementia. he can use win7 fine but why unnecessarily move shit about? he wont remember how to get the screens up etc.
Genius idea, MS! Yeah, let’s remove the Start button, the one thing almost all users knew to use as a place to go when accessing their applications and replace it with general head scratching and confusion.
even shutting down/reboot is a chore too. about 6 clicks to do it. i know you can make shortcuts but you shouldnt have to. the start page is also terrible.
even the explorer interface is terrible now with stupid ribbon menus and almost white bleached out appearance. hurts your eyes to use it. it feels like someone has whacked up contrast and brightness to full.
Or press the power button on your computer. One click. Just sayin
…..
I just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and click on the power icon in the bottom right to shut down.
I can only imagine it’s now harder to shut down because we’re expected to use the physical power button. You can change the behaviour of your power button and set it to sleep, hibernate or shut down as per your preference.
yeah. agreed but my machines i dont always want to do 1 thing. fair enough my netbook is set to sleep on closing the lid and hybernate on pressing power. but sometimes i want to restart my work machine, sometimes i want it to sleep and other times i need to power off. why remove these basics?
most of us know about the ctrl+alt+del but what about non-techies? the people that phone us when there is a problem?
I’d argue that the non-techies are less likely to use more than one of the shutdown options regularly. Even the design of Windows 7 appears to acknowledge this, as the large power button on the start menu can be configured to perform any action. I can tell you that none of the non-techy staff at my company ever use that small arrow to the right that presents all of the shutdown options. Most don’t even know that it exists, and I bet MS know that as they’ll have the metrics to prove it.
Having said that, I agree with you in general. I have no idea how large IT departments are going to implement Win 8. It could raise so many new support issues like this.
Win + I is another way to do it. Shuts down in two clicks, not six.
Seem to be one of few who’d never really use the Start Menu. For quite the while I’ve listed all folders I’d really ever need, on the taskbar, with the toolbar feature, beside all my listed programs. Of course, with “use small icons” enabled. So I never really cared about the absence of the Start Menu, considering I’d very, very rarely use it, so I don’t mind it being slightly tucked away. Wonder how long it’ll be ’till people appreciate Windows 8, eh? Eh, everyone hates change, add an extra view-feature and people’ll bitch so frequently, and become so passionately enraged over it, their babies are born with a YouTube account, and will be urging the nurses to chop their umbilical chord, so they can reach their keypad.
Yeah, that’s more like an administrator’s quick-menu. That’s a pretty quick way to get to a lot of the tools that a tech might use.
All this complaining about the start screen is funny. In 10 years people will be bitching and moaning about “Why is Microsoft messing with the Start Screen? It’s perfect the way it is! My parent/grandparent with XYZ disease can’t make heads or tails of it! I’m gonna install a 3rd party app to bring the Start Screen back!”
I guarantee it.
If you’re that desperate for a Start Menu there’s only one solution.
Windows 7
No. Windows 8 + a third-party start menu app would do it perfectly fine.
Or, Windows 7
If you already have Windows 7 that is a fine solution. I wouldn’t be keen to spend a hundred quid on a problem that has a free solution if you have Windows 8…..
as a die hard start menu person and a windows 8 upgrader, using the start menu is just an easy simple feature that born out of habit, i tend to use my laptop by me on my sofa and also use a mouse, now i know this may sound petty but i control my laptop mostly by mouse (unless i am typing something) so using keyboard shortcuts is actually an inconvenience to me in my daily use, and hence why the start button is useful for the way i use my laptop
and hence why i have classic menu installed to give it back to me, i agree that if i sat in a typing position with both hands at the keyboard then shortcuts are great.
but for one handed browsing etc..
then a start menu and a mouse suits me just fine.