Windows 10 lets you customize the Start Menu experience

Personally, I already got used to the Windows 8-style Start screen, and configured the tiles the way I want them. The new hybrid mashup approach to the Start button / menu / screen behavior feels like a step in the wrong direction–backward. The up side is that the experience is customizable so you can configure it to suit your whims.

I wrote about customizing the Windows 10 Technical Preview Start Menu experience in this blog post:

One of the loudest, and most persistent complaints about Windows 8 has been the fate of the Start button — and along with it, the Start Menu. With Windows 10, Microsoft brought the Start button / Menu functionality back and then some. Now, you have the power to customize the Start experience as you see fit.

The Windows logo existed on the taskbar at the bottom left of the desktop mode in Windows 8 as well, but tapping or clicking it would just toggle back and forth from the desktop to the tiled Modern UI Windows 8 Start Screen. Right-clicking the Windows logo “Start Button” in Windows 8.1 also provided access to many functions found in the pre-Windows 8 Start Menu.

For many disgruntled Windows users, that simply wasn’t good enough. Faced with less-than-stellar adoption of the Windows 8 OS, Microsoft tweaked much of the experience for Windows 10, and now that old-fashioned Start button / Menu functionality is back.

In the Windows 10 Technical Preview, tapping or clicking the Windows logo opens a Start Menu. The Windows 10 Start Menu, however, is a sort of Frankenstein mashup of the traditional Start Menu and the Windows 8 Start Screen all at once.

The left panel looks and acts like the Start Menu in older versions of Windows — with shortcut links to favorite and recently used applications, plus a link you can click to surf through all of the installed applications and launch whatever you like. The right side of the Start Menu, on the other hand, is comprised of tiles like those from the Windows 8 Start Screen. You get both worlds merged together.

Read the full post at TechRepublic: How to customize the Windows 10 Start Menu (or Screen).

Have you installed the Windows 10 Technical Preview? What do you think of the new Start Menu?