Start Button/Start Menu/All Programs

mousegolf · 01 Aug 2014

HippsieGypsie, post: 34678, member: 99 said:

I'll stand neutral, but I like the new system better and think it's quicker to use.

Errr.....that doesn't sound neutral but that's okay with me.

alphanumeric · 01 Aug 2014

supertweaker, post: 34679, member: 164 said:

I am glad you have a Start Orb for W8. Otherwise the OS appears to be ethereal rather than virtual.

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean?

CountMike · 16 Aug 2014

Apps, OK, let there be Apps but they would not have to be Tiles, normal textual menu with an icon should be enough. Could fit more on one screen and properly grouped by their use would be easier to find. In the "All Apps" screen there are parts of programs that do not belong to a menu at all and once you pass few dozen programs it's too crowded to find anything easily, than you have to find main program, to pin it to Start screen and put it in it's place. Just too cumbersome and requires manual labor to put everything in ship shape. What's even worse, those extra mini tiles in All Apps menu can't even be unpinned from there. Just great jumble of stuff, difficult to navigate. If it was not for that, I would rather use All Apps screen instead of normal Start screen. Would be even better if it could be set to vertical scroll.

alphanumeric · 16 Aug 2014

To remove clutter I just right click > open file location, and delete any shortcuts I never want to see again. Links to the authors web site, other downloads, all that junk that gets added with those free utilities etc. It gets rid of a lot of the junk that ends up on the all apps screen. I used to do the same thing in the Start Menu, there's just and extra step to find the actual shortcut.

CountMike · 16 Aug 2014

alphanumeric, post: 35315, member: 152 said:

To remove clutter I just right click > open file location, and delete any shortcuts I never want to see again. Links to the authors web site, other downloads, all that junk that gets added with those free utilities etc. It gets ride of a lot of the junk that ends up on the all apps screen. I used to do the same thing in the Start Menu, there's just and extra step to find the actual shortcut.

Oh, thanks, just went thru all of them and deleted BIG bunch of links. Much cleaner now. Noticed one thing, the older the program, more junk links with it. If it would only be an option to have only executables make a link there would be no need to do this cleaning after. It looks good now, just to make it scroll vertically and it would be almost perfect menu.

alphanumeric · 16 Aug 2014

CountMike, post: 35321, member: 391 said:

Oh, thanks, just went thru all of them and deleted BIG bunch of links. Much cleaner now. Noticed one thing, the older the program, more junk links with it. If it would only be an option to have only executables make a link there would be no need to do this cleaning after. It looks good now, just to make it scroll vertically and it would be almost perfect menu.

What happens is when there was a Start Menu, some of the program shortcuts would be in sub folders. With the Start Screen they all go on the All Apps screen. You may have noticed when you did the open file location that it looks like the old Start Menu. You should see a Start Menu folder at the top of the tree. I went so far as to add my own shortcuts for Internet Explorer (the real one) and Shutdown.
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CountMike · 16 Aug 2014

Yes, I found some in subfolders in Program data>Start Menu > Programs > under various programs installed and deleted all unnecessary links. Size of All Apps is now half of what it used to be.

alphanumeric · 16 Aug 2014

bigseb · 20 Aug 2014

MikeHawthorne, post: 34534, member: 342 said:

Hi

Well I have to admit to being Windows 8 phobic, and I use Classic Shell to do pretty much what you are doing in Windows 8.

I do use Rocket Dock to launch most of the things I run on a regular basis.
And I just recently streamlined that process by putting similar software in folders on the dock to cut down the number of icons.

I.e. the G Folder has links to all my Adobe and other graphic arts software.

I put the things I want to have available when a window is open on the task bar.
Pretty much everything else I use is on my Rocket Dock bar.

This is a great simplification since my Metro All Programs Windows has over 400 icons on it.

Mike

Not to go too far off-topic but why do you use Rocketdock instead of just pinning it to the taskbar? I tried Rocketdock a few times but gave up as I couldn't get all minimised windows to show in the dock... now I just do this...

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MilesAhead · 22 Aug 2014

bigseb, post: 35622, member: 98 said:

Not to go too far off-topic but why do you use Rocketdock instead of just pinning it to the taskbar? I tried Rocketdock a few times but gave up as I couldn't get all minimised windows to show in the dock... now I just do this...

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As a RocketDock refugee I can say one reason to use RD is to have the same setup across multiple Windows flavors. XP and Vista don't have Taskbar pinning. I had categorized folders of shortcuts the same in each on RocketDock. Of course I still pinned stuff I used most on OS that supported it or used QuickLaunch if it didn't. Also I had 7Stacks with categorized stacks on Taskbar in Vista and W7.

Now I only have W8 and I'm bored with the same RD setup ritual. I just stumble along with a Taskbar Toolbar folder. :)