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What is your opinion of the new Start Menu in Windows 10?
- Thread starter tiziano27
- Start date
realwarder
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- Dec 31, 2012
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Tiles are nice. BUT and it's a big BUT, Windows XP/Windows 7 users will NOT be happy:
The All Apps menu as a list of about a million apps to scroll down doesn't work. Especially trying to find that folder for an installed app. It needs a better organization that matches Windows 7 for that. Perhaps even splitting Apps and Programs. Trying to find "Windows Accessories" just didn't work for me.
Microsoft needs Win7 users to love the new menu and feel at home. Sure there's a button now in the task bar, but they will not feel at home.
The All Apps menu as a list of about a million apps to scroll down doesn't work. Especially trying to find that folder for an installed app. It needs a better organization that matches Windows 7 for that. Perhaps even splitting Apps and Programs. Trying to find "Windows Accessories" just didn't work for me.
Microsoft needs Win7 users to love the new menu and feel at home. Sure there's a button now in the task bar, but they will not feel at home.
bmetelsky
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- Jun 2, 2013
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I'm a Windows 7 user and think Windows 10 start menu is headed in the right direction.
loribinca
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- Mar 7, 2012
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How to get Build 9879?s Start Menu in Windows 10 Build 9926? | Techdows
just google for it - a few tech sites have the workaround posted.
just google for it - a few tech sites have the workaround posted.
Taste like KDE5, Cinnamon, Reviversoft's Start Menu fusion together.
Now I'm stick to W10 like a glue.
Now I'm stick to W10 like a glue.
kamalot
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- Aug 3, 2015
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The new Start menu is a terrible User Experience.
When a user goes looking for an application, they have four important pieces of information to use.
On most operating systems... a user can utilize all four of these pieces of information to quickly find their applications.
Yet in the Windows 10 Start menu, we begin to encounter some inefficiencies.
I REALLY wanted to like this new Start menu, and I have given Microsoft the benefit of the doubt through Windows 8 and 8.1.
I have resorted to putting my most used applications directly on my desktop as shortcuts. I use too many to keep pinned to the taskbar (which is supposed to be for RUNNING tasks) and the new Start Menu is simply busted. It tries to do too much but breaks the fundamental interactions of how people use the computer.
When a user goes looking for an application, they have four important pieces of information to use.
- Location of the icon
- Shape of the icon
- Color of the icon
- Name of the icon
On most operating systems... a user can utilize all four of these pieces of information to quickly find their applications.
Yet in the Windows 10 Start menu, we begin to encounter some inefficiencies.
- Location - The location of each icon remains the same... until the display is rotated. Using the interface in Tablet mode reflows the application icons. Users need to be prepared for a bit of a hunt if they use their device in tablet mode. 'Most Used' is a good idea... but without having control things shift on their own breaking the 'location' information. Location is the least of the problems though...
- Shape - The 'Shape' of each icon is now 'square', reducing the visual information available to users. This means that finding an icon required an extra 'step' of looking for a tile, and then looking inside the tile for an icon.
- Color - Again, the colors of isons are swamped by the useless color of the tiles. In Windows 8.1, tiles utilized a color from the primary icon, so telling them apart was easier. In Windows 10, the color is set by the user... but it is the same for all Desktop applications. This is downright useless. Users could set their color to 'dark' in order to more easily find icons using their shape and color... but doing so 'breaks' other parts of the interface. To try this yourself, set your color to 'dark' and then you can no longer see what toggles are on and off in the notifications area.
- Name - Tiles of reasonable size lose their name. This removes another piece of important information to users looking for their application.
- Combination Problems - The worst offenders are the 'metro' icons which are colorless white. They are quickly reduced to treasure hunts. Users end up looking for a tiny white icon, in a generic colored box, in an array of boxes with the same color, often without a name, that sometimes move based on the screen real estate.
I REALLY wanted to like this new Start menu, and I have given Microsoft the benefit of the doubt through Windows 8 and 8.1.
I have resorted to putting my most used applications directly on my desktop as shortcuts. I use too many to keep pinned to the taskbar (which is supposed to be for RUNNING tasks) and the new Start Menu is simply busted. It tries to do too much but breaks the fundamental interactions of how people use the computer.
bmetelsky
New member
- Jun 2, 2013
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If the start menu is the only issue you have, then you should be looking forward to Stardock's Start 10 program. It'll cost you $5 but worth it if you want to have your start menu look like the one in 7. I happen to like the new start menu. It suits my needs fine and I like the live tiles.
Meh. I use the full screen start menu. It's as close as I can get to my beloved 8.1 start screen.
I think screen is going in the wrong direction and here's why
1. the idea that the natural movement of our thumbs is an up and down pattern is absolute BS. With your hand at rest the thumb digit is angled. It is not up and down like the other fingers. In fact its angled MORE than 45 degrees which means that movment lends itself better to horizontal scrolling and NOT vertical. In face when holding your tablet look at where your thumbs are point. its not straight up and down but at an angle. As it turns out it is MORE difficult to scroll up and down because you have to engage the hand and forearm muscles to try and force the thumb to be at a more upright angle. I am tired of Microsoft responding to tough questions about dumb design decisions in such a insulting way. They give you what they want for what ever arbitrary reason and then tell you "wait, this is what you want too. See, you just thought you wanted something else but really this is what you want" if I wanted that I would have stayed with Apple.
2. regardless of HOW our thumbs move our eyes see better in a wide screen aspect ratio. Our field of vision is horizontal with vertical scrolling there is sooo much wasted screen realestate. Less icons on the screen means I have to do MORE work scrolling. If vertical is better because of our thumbs than why isn't the tablet shaped more like the iPad? because the wide screen gives the best viewing experience.
3. Not being able to have the same customization options as windows phone blows. Picking the tile color and transparency is important. There is no reason for me to select a background image if I am unable to see it anyway. They should give MORE customization options for the start screen
4. more is better so more size options for live tiles would be a good direction.
that's all I can think of for now but there is more. Just cant remember all now
1. the idea that the natural movement of our thumbs is an up and down pattern is absolute BS. With your hand at rest the thumb digit is angled. It is not up and down like the other fingers. In fact its angled MORE than 45 degrees which means that movment lends itself better to horizontal scrolling and NOT vertical. In face when holding your tablet look at where your thumbs are point. its not straight up and down but at an angle. As it turns out it is MORE difficult to scroll up and down because you have to engage the hand and forearm muscles to try and force the thumb to be at a more upright angle. I am tired of Microsoft responding to tough questions about dumb design decisions in such a insulting way. They give you what they want for what ever arbitrary reason and then tell you "wait, this is what you want too. See, you just thought you wanted something else but really this is what you want" if I wanted that I would have stayed with Apple.
2. regardless of HOW our thumbs move our eyes see better in a wide screen aspect ratio. Our field of vision is horizontal with vertical scrolling there is sooo much wasted screen realestate. Less icons on the screen means I have to do MORE work scrolling. If vertical is better because of our thumbs than why isn't the tablet shaped more like the iPad? because the wide screen gives the best viewing experience.
3. Not being able to have the same customization options as windows phone blows. Picking the tile color and transparency is important. There is no reason for me to select a background image if I am unable to see it anyway. They should give MORE customization options for the start screen
4. more is better so more size options for live tiles would be a good direction.
that's all I can think of for now but there is more. Just cant remember all now
I don't like the W10 desktop-mode Start menu because live tiles are pretty useless if they are out of sight almost all of the time.
So really you might just as well have icons. Unfortunately, live tiles aren't as good as icons because there is no text field underneath (or alongside) them. So instead of having the program name under the icon to prompt you, you have to memorise the icon of every program you might want to pin to the Start menu. OK, for some programs (like MS Office) the icons are clear and memorable. But for many other programs they definitely aren't.
So on the whole, I would say the W10 Start menu offers almost nothing over the W7 Start menu, and in fact is much worse because you can only pin tiles, not icons.
I said "almost nothing" - the one thing W10 offers is the ability to put pinned tiles into groups, which sadly you cannot do on W7. In that one respect the W10 menu is better. But 1x1 tiles are useless compared to the similarly-sized icons, and MS has made a big mistake by stopping you displaying icons in the pinned area.
So really you might just as well have icons. Unfortunately, live tiles aren't as good as icons because there is no text field underneath (or alongside) them. So instead of having the program name under the icon to prompt you, you have to memorise the icon of every program you might want to pin to the Start menu. OK, for some programs (like MS Office) the icons are clear and memorable. But for many other programs they definitely aren't.
So on the whole, I would say the W10 Start menu offers almost nothing over the W7 Start menu, and in fact is much worse because you can only pin tiles, not icons.
I said "almost nothing" - the one thing W10 offers is the ability to put pinned tiles into groups, which sadly you cannot do on W7. In that one respect the W10 menu is better. But 1x1 tiles are useless compared to the similarly-sized icons, and MS has made a big mistake by stopping you displaying icons in the pinned area.
I really don't like the start menu either. My brother turned me on to an application called Classic Shell which basically puts an older version of the start menu back on there. Mine basically looks like a mix up of Windows VISTA and Windows 8.1 with the apps option.
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