How to use the Windows 10 Start menu

With the new Windows 10 Technical Preview, Microsoft has returned the Start menu to its rightful place. But the new menu offers a few surprises with its dual-personality of part Start menu and part Start screen. How can you use and even personalize the menu so it works best for you?

First, let’s assume you’ve already downloaded and installed the Windows 10 Technical Preview. If not, you can download and install it directly from Microsoft’s Technical Preview page, though you may be best downloading the ISO file, which you can either burn onto a CD or transfer to a USB flash drive and install from either media.

However and wherever you install it, you’ll want to make sure you don’t install it as an upgrade on your main production PC since the product is still very much in beta stage. Instead, you can install it in its own separate partition on an existing PC or as a virtual machine using a product such as VMware Player or Oracle VirtualBox.

Assuming you’ve installed Windows 10 on a PC, click the Start button after Windows appears, and you’ll see the new Start menu with its hybrid approach. On the left, the familiar menu column appears with shortcuts to your applications and settings. On the right, a screen full of tiles to Windows apps displays so you can access key Windows apps right from the menu.

Click any shortcut on the left to open that particular setting or location. Click any tile on the right to open a specific Start screen app, such as Mail, Calendar, or News. Click the familiar All Apps setting, and the left column changes to show the standard Start screen apps as well as folders to familiar Windows settings and controls.

Need to search for an app, file or other item? Simply type your word or phrase in the search field, and a list of suggestions pops up. You can do the same thing by clicking the Search icon, but in that case Windows also displays recent and trending searches.

Want to shut down or restart Windows? Click the Power button at the top of the menu next to your name, and Windows will at the very least display options to Shut down and Restart. Right-click your account name, and you’ll see a menu with three options: Change account picture, lock and sign out.

OK, now let’s say you want to change or personalize some aspects of the Start menu. Here’s where your right mouse button comes into play. For example, you want to add your Documents folder as a tile on the right side of the menu. Right-click the folder and click Pin to Start. A tile for your Documents appears on the right. Maybe you want to add your Documents folder to the taskbar instead. Right-click the folder and click Pin to Taskbar. Or maybe you want to remove the shortcut for your Documents folder from the menu entirely. Right-click the folder and click Remove from this List.

Now let’s say you want to manage certain apps. Click the All Apps setting. Right-click any app, and you’ll typically see four options: Open, Uninstall, Pin to Start (or Unpin from Start if the app is already set up as a tile), and Pin to taskbar (or Unpin from taskbar if the app is already there). Simply click the option you want.

OK, next step. Let’s say you want to manage the tiles that appear on the right side of the menu. Right-click a specific tile, and a menu pops up with certain choices: Unpin from Start, Pin to taskbar, and Resize. Most apps will also have an Uninstall option. An app that can appear as a Live tile will also have one of two choices: either turn Live tile on or turn Live tile off, depending on the current setting. Again, simply click the option you want.

By customizing the left column and the right column, you can easily control how much you want to stick with the standard Start menu and how much you want to tap into the tiled Start screen portion.

Any other tricks to customizing the Start menu? Yep, as in Windows 7, there’s a whole screen dedicated to that very task. Right-click the taskbar and click the Properties command. From the Taskbar and Start Menu properties window, click the tab for Start menu. In the Start Menu section, click the Customize button. You can now determine which items appear in the Start menu list and how they behave.

Since Windows 10 is just an early Technical Preview, Microsoft will undoubtedly add more features and functionality to the Start menu before the final product is released. But for now, these tips and tricks should help you navigate your way around the new Start menu and show you how to easily manage and customize it.