Return of the Start Menu
If you’re feeling instantly lost without the old Start menu, you’re not alone. Thousands of PC fans would argue that the Start menu offers a more compact, concise, customizable listing of programs and files than the TileWorld Start screen.
Figure 6-1. The Start menu is back! Well, pieces of it, anyway. You’re still expected to open files, programs, and apps in TileWorld. But some of the commands here are extremely helpful shortcuts. This, for example, is definitely how you should shut down, restart, or sleep your PC (instead of using the multistep procedure in TileWorld).
Microsoft scoffs at that idea. It points out that every time there’s a new version of Windows, there’s an instant spike in popularity of shareware programs that make it work like the previous version of Windows. Eventually, the public stops panicking and learns to trust the new design.
The Start Button
Still, much has changed in this department since Windows 8.
First, in Windows 8.1, the Start button
(
) is back. It’s there in the lower-left corner
of the desktop, right where it always was. (It even appears
TileWorld if you point your mouse to that corner.)
The Start button does not open the traditional Start menu, however. It’s another way to open the Start screen. If you tap or click it, you just ...
Get Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
