The medium tiles display the app’s name and an icon. The wide and large sizes are useful for “modern” apps that animate their tiles with “live” content. You can right-click the tile to adjust its size too small, medium, wide or large. You can then drag the tile to wherever you want it in either an existing group or a new group. You can right-click on any program in the list and choose “Pin to Start” to add a tile for that program to the array of tiles. Tiles are especially nice on hand-held touch screen devices.ĭown the left side of the Start menu is the standard complete, alphabetical list of all installed programs. I no longer need to uncover desktop icons and double click. The app starts up and the Start menu closes back up. To launch an app, I just press the Windows key to pop open the Start menu and then click the tile of the app. The app tiles I use most are at the top left. The tiles are grouped and labeled along functional lines, such as “Useful Tools,” “Image and Video Tools,” “Finance, Business and Tax,” “MS office 365” and others. In this layout, I don’t need to scroll to find a particular tile. I have stretched the Start menu out to allow three 3-column groups and have all my tiles sized to the medium, square size. Following is a screenshot of my current Start menu: You can open the Start Menu by clicking the flag icon at the far left of the taskbar or by simply pressing the Windows key.

The Windows 10 V1909 Start Menu is the best incarnation yet and helps me with some of the above issues. (Note – I prefer not to use the “single click to open” setting – too many misfires.) Also, to launch from a desktop icon I need to double-click it – something my ageing fingers no longer do well. Often I have to minimize or move those other apps to uncover the desktop icons so I can double-click the one I need to launch the new app. However, even now, when I’m working intensely and need to start an application while I have others running, it gets irritating. Over four years of using Windows 10, I’ve steadily reduced the original number of desktop icons by half. As you can see, I have about two dozen icons on the desktop that I use to launch applications, access data folders, or run command scripts. However, I gradually came to like it as a way to declutter my desktop and actually make it easier to find things.

Originally, I had mixed feelings about Windows 10’s new hybrid “list and tiles” Start menu. It’s latest major update is V2004 – this article is written using the Fall 2209 update. Windows 10 was originally released in July 2015. Tom Burt, Vice-President, Sun City Summerlin Computer Club

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