Windows 7 Classic Start Menu

[Coasty]

The run command always did. But that defeats the point and click purpose of a GUI ! AND you have to take your hand off the mouse and start typing.

The whole point to a GUI is that NO application should be more than 2 clicks away. Like linux or win98, win98se, winME, winXP and even the warmed over, reboot every 30 minutes winVISTA!

That was mostly the main point I was going make in reply to the original message, but you beat me to it. As the saying goes, Time is Money, and I get irritated when a 'so called" feature gets in my way and slows me down. Looking good is fine, but only when it doesn't get in the way of my productivity.

I see his point to a degree, but running programs is not where this latest version of the Start Menu is frustrating me. He probably missed my post where I mentioned that I use Hkey_Local_Key and it's subset ClsId to make my own icon right click menus so that running any program I habitually use, and any accompanying utilities, is a maximum of two keyclicks away, one to open the menu and one to execute. You just can't do that in the default Start Menu or, for that matter, in the Classic Mode menu. The other major benefit of doing this is that I can combine all related programs/utilities etc. in an easy to reach spot on the desktop. Doing this is not something I would recommend for everybody because you do have to know what you're doing and be comfortable with editing the registry. So running programs is not the problem.

The problem is that with my graphics work I generate a whole lot of movement of files/folders and maintaining them in a logical structure within the Start Menu is not very easy. There's a good reason for that. The default file/folder structure of the Start Menu works just peachy fine if you don't have very many files/folders, but quickly generates into an overcrowded and hard to read mess when you have a large number of them. Trust me, if you haven't noticed it, when the All Programs area starts getting over 50 or so files/folders it quickly becomes a hard to read mess. It wouldn't be so bad but for one thing, the alphabetizing routines in the Start Menu had distinct changes in the move up from XP to Vista, and now to Win7. I.E. It no longer allows you to group your files and folders into logical arrangements of like folders and/or files. The blasted Win7 menu, I quickly discovered, now insists upon placing the folders at the bottom of the list in alphabetical order, the exact opposite of how I want them. It insists on alphabetizing EVERYTHING even though I have that option turned off in the Start Menu settings. I can move anything to exactly where I want, but at the next boot it's alphabetized all over again. At least in Vista, in either default or classic mode, when you got off the Main Menu and Program page the file/folder names would stay in the order you arranged them. That's not happening with this latest iteration of the Start Menu, plus drag&drop is now noticeably slower than Vista.

Now, for the real reason I don't like the default Start Menu. It's simple really, and boils down to the fact that the default first page of the menu is loaded with clickable links that I rarely, if ever, use. Using the Classic Menu seriously reduced the clutter of useless, to me anyway, links to a bare minimum.

As an aside, the search function that some of these fellows keep mentioning is a non-factor with me. Basically, my stuff is NOT maintained in any of the default Documents, Music, Games etc folders. Personally I think anybody who actually uses those folders probably needs lessons in logical thinking and how to organize a hard drive so you can quickly and easily find your files and documents without having to waste time running a search in order to find them. I probably have about 30,000 or so graphic files, of one sort or another, on my system, and none of it is on the C partition. I don't really need to do a search to find anything because I have everything broken down into logical sections/sub-sections. Of course there's also the fact that I work with them so much it's pretty much a no-brainer for me to get right to them faster than the time it would take me to set up a search.

Actually, my own personal take is that you should NEVER maintain any working documents on your system partition, and that includes installed programs. The system partition should be just that, the place where your operating system resides and works. Your programs and working files should _always_ be maintained in a separate partition. I come by that philosophy by the dint of hard experience (along with lost data) gained over close to 40 years of working with computers.

I will say though that I do believe I'm going to fall in love with the Libraries feature, it looks like a feature that is a good enough reason all by itself to upgrade to Win7. It has great potential to be a real time saver.

Gads, that was about 6 more paragraphs than I meant to write!!

 

[tanzanos]

OK! To all the Anti Classic Menu guys; I have this to say:

If the new menu is so much more advanced than the Classic menu then why does it take me just a few seconds to navigate with Classic menu while it takes me minutes to do the same with the new menu? Everything is hidden in the new menu. I have almost no control like I did with Classic menu.
I think it is obvious that Microsoft decided for MARKETING purposes to design a menu that looks NEW and far apart from its predecessor for the sake of offering a new product. There was nothing wrong with Classic menu. Also Office 2007 and Vista and Win7 have this very hard to read look. Everything is faded and baby coloured! No more sharp screens.
I am VERY happy with my WIN 7 x64 and if it had Classic menu then I would be even more happy.
Also it is extremely annoying when every time I open a program I am asked by the OS to acknowledge my decision. Is there a way to tell the !@#$%^ OS to TRUST such and such programs?

 

[tanzanos]

Coasty if you use the search feature everything is accessible much faster for example, notepad used to be Start>All Programs>Accessories>Notepad.

Now with windows 7 you can just do Start>Type Note or Notepad>Enter and there you go its open. Works with any program too.

Not if you have a shortcut on desktop. That will outdraw your search feature by far!

 

[Kylethedarkn]

Not if you have a shortcut on desktop. That will outdraw your search feature by far!

Yes...but we are talking about start menus, and I know you can access anything in the new start menu faster or as fast as the old start menu using the search feature.

Yes you may have to take you hand off the mouse, but I believe that even with doing that you are still spending less time than clicking through the old start menu.

Plus with the search feature you can easily find programs rather than having to manually look through the giant list of crap on the screen.

Also somebody mentioned that about not keeping files on the system partition. Well you can add any folder to your searches/libraries so I don't see how that would be a problem. Especially since the start menu is only really used for finding programs.

 

[Coasty]

Yes, there is a way, but not exactly the way you want.

Look down at your task bar on the right side and, if it's active, you'll see a rather ugly white icon that looks almost exactly like a golf course putting green flag. That's your Action Bar icon. If it's not in the task bar you can find it in the control panel. Double click it and in the resulting popup window click again on 'Open Action Center'. In the window that opens up click on 'Change User Account Control Settings', which is in the upper left side of the window.

My personal preference of the four available options is to turn the UAC permanently off, which is the bottom setting. The middle two choices are basically the same option, and still far too aggressive and annoying in the messages it pops up, which is why I just turn the damn thing off.

 

[Coasty]

Yes...but we are talking about start menus, and I know you can access anything in the new start menu faster or as fast as the old start menu using the search feature.

Yes you may have to take you hand off the mouse, but I believe that even with doing that you are still spending less time than clicking through the old start menu.

Plus with the search feature you can easily find programs rather than having to manually look through the giant list of crap on the screen.

Also somebody mentioned that about not keeping files on the system partition. Well you can add any folder to your searches/libraries so I don't see how that would be a problem. Especially since the start menu is only really used for finding programs.

That was me who mentioned that. Microsoft's basic OS set up for user files/folders is geared to the lowest common denominator, a hard drived set up as one large partition. That statement obviously holds true for the manufacturers who deliver systems with hard drives set up that way. It's probably the worst possible hard drive set up there is, and most people don't know enough to change it.

Using the search function to find a program I want to run would actually slow me down. If, as you said, you have a giant list of crap on your screen and the reason why you make extensive use of the search function to find your programs, well, that tells me your screen is very poorly organized. I hope that example wasn't meant to be taken literally!

I do agree that the new Library will make it vastly easier to logically organize your files/folders. This feature by itself is enough to make the upgrade to Win7 eminently worthwhile, Kudos to Microsoft on that one.

With regards to what you said about how the start menu is used, that is highly dependent on how one uses a computer. I have to disagree a little bit with you, it might be the way you use it, but as you might tell from my post, and that of others, there are more than a few of us who obviously have a different approach on how to use the start menu, finding the classic menu much better suited for use than the newer Vista/Win7 start menu. Having said that, the start menu (either mode) is the logical choice for centralizing access to your file/folder structure. So, from that view point, you're absolutely correct.

Heh... I've spent a lot time over the years installing/troubleshooting/fixing computers for users who are not particularly computer savvy. A lot of desktops I've seen, both home and business systems, are so positively littered with document icons etc, that the sheer number of icons makes it hard to find the one you want. No organization at all in other words. For those people the Library function would be a tremendous God send if, that is, they learn how to use it. I suspect that the people who need it the most will probably skip right by it and never make use of it.

 

[redskin92]

dang dude.. really.. I want the classic one back too..
Calm down.. plus where are you getting these statistics from anyways? 99%?? what a joke.
The new start menu isn't really all that different, i just miss the bars with the title of the process or whatever, its easier to tell what it is.

 

[stueycaster]

I'm using the Windows Start menu plus CSMenu. It's working out fine for me. I'd like to switch back to to the Classic Start Menu I used in XP but since it's not there this is ok. I'm sure somebody will make a really excellent Classic Start Menu sometime. There are a lot of people who still want it.

 

[nehoma]

............and another thing, the new Start Menu can be customesed quite a lot. Nothing like a good arguement Kyle, intervene when we come to blows, LOL

 

[stueycaster]

It's amazing how strong people's feelings run on this issue. I guess I can understand why though. I still can't stand the "All Programs" menu in the new start menu. I have an alternative now and things are working out just fine.

 

[macrofeet]

Much of the stuff on the current xp/vista/7 menu is not needed but it looks really nice and i use it on my laptop and home pc, but not at work

for me the new menu feels more gameish, like doing office work in a park instead of an office but not as exstreme

both are good removing the switch is abit annoying i cant see how the switch is going to slow wndows down if it was programmed correctly, one running or other

 

[Desdamon]

the game

did i win it?

Link Removed due to 404 Error

 

[Desdamon]

incase you're wondering

Link Removed - Invalid URL

use this link to stop IE from warning you about the .LNK files that are being pulled from it's favorites list:

Twig's Tech Tips: Windows 7: Disable the "Open File Security Warning" message

 

[iroken22]

OK! To all the Anti Classic Menu guys; I have this to say:

If the new menu is so much more advanced than the Classic menu then why does it take me just a few seconds to navigate with Classic menu while it takes me minutes to do the same with the new menu? Everything is hidden in the new menu. I have almost no control like I did with Classic menu.
I think it is obvious that Microsoft decided for MARKETING purposes to design a menu that looks NEW and far apart from its predecessor for the sake of offering a new product. There was nothing wrong with Classic menu. Also Office 2007 and Vista and Win7 have this very hard to read look. Everything is faded and baby coloured! No more sharp screens.
I am VERY happy with my WIN 7 x64 and if it had Classic menu then I would be even more happy.
Also it is extremely annoying when every time I open a program I am asked by the OS to acknowledge my decision. Is there a way to tell the !@#$%^ OS to TRUST such and such programs?

Um well lets see you have been using the classic menu for how many years? Probably 10-15 years. It had become a habit. But as every piece of technology happens it soon becomes outdated to newer technology. It will take time for people to learn stuff. People are afraid of change. Of course it is going to take you more time to navigate at first. I have been using windows 7 for more than a year now and I can tell you the first few months were slow but now i am so fast with the new menu its unbelievable. Give it a chance guys come on!!! You cant say a feature is bad by using it a couple of times. You need to at least use it several hundreds of thousands of times to make a proper assessment. Im not saying that Microsoft's decision was correct to remove the classic menu but i am supporting the cause of the new start menu!!!

 

[tanzanos]

Um well lets see you have been using the classic menu for how many years? Probably 10-15 years. It had become a habit. But as every piece of technology happens it soon becomes outdated to newer technology. It will take time for people to learn stuff. People are afraid of change. Of course it is going to take you more time to navigate at first. I have been using windows 7 for more than a year now and I can tell you the first few months were slow but now i am so fast with the new menu its unbelievable. Give it a chance guys come on!!! You cant say a feature is bad by using it a couple of times. You need to at least use it several hundreds of thousands of times to make a proper assessment. Im not saying that Microsoft's decision was correct to remove the classic menu but i am supporting the cause of the new start menu!!!

That is not true. I did not experience a learning curve with classic menus because there is a simple logic behind it. It was so simple that in less than 10 minutes I could navigate without problems. Spending months just to learn to navigate through the new menus is ridiculous!
Improve classic menus? YES! Getting rid of them? BAD IDEA!

Cars have been around for more than a century and still the basic design is the same. All that has happened is improvement. What Microsoft did was to get rid of a VERY Functional menu and replaced it with a "MAZE". Now all they had to do was give us the "option" They did it with XP, and Vista; And they had no reason not to do it with win 7.

 

[iroken22]

and that is where you are wrong. The Classic MEnu and the new menu still have the same basic design behind them in that each folder branches off to another or to a program. Yes it may work a little different but it has the same basic idea and layout behind it. Hell you know what is sad is that my Grandmother who has never touched a PC in her life got one a week ago and has loved the start menu within it. She found no problems learning to maneuver it. Know if an 84 year old lady can do it i mean come on guys!!!! Arguing over speed should not be the case. Technically the new start menu is more technologically superior. Hell E85 gasoline is considered superior to other gasolines because it is enviromentally friendly and efficient but it takes about 1.4 times the time to make. Tell me now if anyone argues the classic start menu is superior then they must argue that regular gasoline is superior. I mean now come on.

 

[RAK]

I think I posted here at the start somewhere, and have tried to avoid this thread since.
However, in support, I stand behind Iroken. I sometimes use my wife's computer, where she stubbornly sits behind her XP desktop. I must say that, having been using the new menu since the Vista eaarly Betas, I find no difference in my ability to navigate around either.

This thread. In the (modified) words of Winston Churchill.. Never has so much been said, about so little.

 

[macrofeet]

"did i win it?"

it appears you failed to load word and have to pay me $1000 sorry

Not much really that is better about the new menu it looks nicer on a home pc but at work it is annoying for me if you remove the recent open programs you get a big space which looks nasty tho you can fill it with pointless links

Link Removed due to 404 Error

 

[thomasw234]

Tell me now if anyone argues the classic start menu is superior then they must argue that regular gasoline is superior. I mean now come on.

Argument from analogy is another common weak form of argument. It is reasoning based on perceived similarities between two or more things. It argues that a perceived similarity in one aspect will result in similarities in other aspects.

 

[nehoma]

I have forgotten what the old Menu looked like