Studio711.com – Ben Martens

If You’re Excited About The Start Menu In Windows 10, You’re Doing It Wrong

Windows-10-Start-MenuHow’s that for a click-bait post title? A little long maybe… anyway, I say it with tongue in cheek. Obviously you can use your computer however you want. But my point is that people who are excited about the start menu are usually using their computer a little bit inefficiently. Ever since Vista, there has been an awesome keyboard shortcut that obviates the need to use the mouse in the start menu. To start ANY program on your computer, press the Windows key on your keyboard and then start typing. Whether you’re on Windows Vista, 7, 8.1 or 10, the Windows key will bring up a search box and then as you type it will start filtering through the programs you have installed. Once it finds the one you want, just press enter. I do it so quickly that you can’t even really see what’s going on as the screen flashes around. And that’s the point. It’s FAST.

Here’s an example: press the Windows key and then type notepad and press Enter. Don’t worry about what is happening on the screen. When you’re done, Notepad will be open. Do the same thing for Word, Chrome, Excel, Spotify, Solitaire, etc. It’s so much faster than using the mouse to fumble around and navigate to find the program you want to use.

I think this is one main reason why Windows 8 never bothered me. I don’t really care about the start screen because I never click around it and it only flashes on my screen for fractions of a second throughout the day.