Customizing Your Windows 10 Start Menu!

Make the Windows 10 Start Menu Your Own!

A complete tutorial on customizing your Windows 10 start menu.

Episode #9-45 released on June 23, 2019

Watch on Youtube

The Windows 10 start menu can be very confusing for some users, even though it doesn't have to be at all. This is because there are no tutorials offered by Microsoft in any meaningful way that explains everything that can be done with your Windows 10 start menu.

Now, let's begin with the normal default, on the left we have the application list, and on the right, we have the tiles. The application list was a main staple of Windows Start menus for nearly the entire history of Windows starting with Windows 95 but excluding Windows 8 which used tiles. The Windows 10 start menu brings both together and you can have the best of both worlds and pick and choose how it will look like for yourself.

If you go to the start menu, click the gear icon then go to personalization and click on start, you will be presented with several options.

First, there isn't a lot of space by default in the start menu for tiles, so I already have the show more tiles option enabled. However, you can make the start menu taller or wider by simply dragging the edges.

The second option is related to the application list, you know that list of applications we are all used to seeing since most people refused to use Windows 8. You can disable it and only the tiles will show up, unless you click on the list icon.

The third option, normally enabled, is show recently added applications. I disabled it because the list is alphabetical, and thus not confusing enough to lose any applications in the list.

If you need suggestions for applications, a fourth option is to enable suggestions, but keep in mind, this is advertising from Microsoft.

If you loved the start menu in Windows 8, you can, also, use a Fullscreen option, which makes it look very similar.

And as a last option, within the settings menu, for the start menu we can talk about is the recently opened items in a jump list. Enabling this allows you to open the latest opened files.

Those are the settings, but what about the start menu itself, it has tiles, is there anything we can do to make those more interesting and useful?

Yes. Learning how to create tiles, arrange them, change their sizes and functions can be very useful.

To make a tile, open the start menu, hover over application, right click, and click on pin the start.

To change the tile's size, right click then select resize, choose a tile size.

Some tiles have live modes, to enable or disable those, right click then more, then select turn live tile on or off.

Want to make a group, drag the tile into a near space and when you see a head sized faint bar drop it. It will allow you to make a title for that series of tiles.

Host : Steve Smith | Music : | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Dot Net

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