Left-hand side start menu true customisation?

Hey guys,

back in the good old days of W7, you could pin an application to the start menu and it would appear on the left hand side and it would also offer a list of recently opened things within that application as a right arrow for ease of selection.

For example, within putty I have 2 saved sessions, when I pinned putty to the start menu in W7, it would pin the main program, but a right-arrow would accompany it and let me easily select Saved Session 1 or Saved Session 2 without having to launch putty manually. Similarly for something like notepad, you could pin that and it would come with an arrow and let you open your most recent opened documents without having to open notepad first and then selecting your text file. See attached W7 example png.

The W10 start menu does not let you do this at all. I can pin programs to the pig awful tiles section (please kill it with fire!) but critically it does not provide me with an easy method of selecting something within an app to launch via that app without launching that app first. It must be capable of doing something like it because the default File Explorer menu has the arrow and selection box.

The dirtiest hack I can come up with is somehow manually editing my MRU list but is it easier than that? Please tell me there's a reasonably well built in method for doing simple customisations to the W10 start menu! And if not, tell me how I can manually edit my MRU even though it throws the whole concept of recently used out the window if I'm just going to add stuff to it that I want.

Thanks for your time (:

Ok, so thanks to this post How to Pin folder to start bar? - Windows 10 Forums

I have come up with a slightly better filthy hack.

you can navigate to C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and it has the shortcuts you've pinned in there. You can then edit the shortcuts to launch stuffs more effectively. So instead of having putty link to just putty, I can set it there to have some arguments. That's a start but still not perfect.

Any other ideas? (:

I started using 'Windows Start 10' app to get around these frustrating start menu limitations. I would have prefered to use the stock Windows 10 start menu but it is pretty basic and doesn't even come up to the same level of functionality as in Windows 7.

Start 10 does all the old start menu did in Windows 7 and it seems to work as reliably as the old start menu too. Really cheap to buy, too (about 5 dollars). I will use it until Windows 10 comes with a usable, customisable start menu.

https://www.stardock.com/products/start10/

Classic shell allows this. (Oh, and it's free...). Also overcomes the limit to the number of shortcuts that amazingly still exists on the Win 10 start menu, which means many of my shortcuts present in Classic Shell exactly as they should be are not shown.

On the other hand, as you'll be aware, jump lists appear for shortcuts that are on hte LHS of Win 10's start menu.. but as you say, you can't pin things to the LHS of that. (I haven't found a way of altering the universal app shortcuts there either- one is misbehaving).

I use Classic Shell and it works great.

Classic shell is free but it is very retro. If you want a look that is Windows 10 then Start 10 has this look. It also has the Windows 7 retro look if you prefer. As much as I love Windows 7 I don't want Windows 10 to have its old looking start menu.

squawksarah said:

Classic shell is free but it is very retro. If you want a look that is Windows 10 then Start 10 has this look. It also has the Windows 7 retro look if you prefer. As much as I love Windows 7 I don't want Windows 10 to have its old looking start menu.

I think you are spreading misinformation. Classic Shell has a Metro skin that does not have the retro look.

xpclient said:

I think you are spreading misinformation. Classic Shell has a Metro skin that does not have the retro look.

Spreading Misinformation??? Did you really say that? (I think you are dissing my right to an opinion. Possibly you are a troll?)

Classic Shell is what is says in the title - 'Classic'. 'Classic' = 'retro'. This 'classic' look in no way reflects the modern Windows 10 start menu, unlike Start 10. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION.

Simply look at the image on the classic shell webpage and you will see it is a retro/Windows 7 start menu. That's all I am saying. If users want the Windows 7 retro look then FINE! I love Windows 7 but I have moved on to the newer Windows 10 look.

So if you want a Windows 7 look then Classic Shell would do fine. If you like the more modern Windows 10 look but want a configurable start menu I suggest Start 10.

I don't think W7 counts as retro just yet, XP/W95 would be retro!
But anyway, thanks for the suggestions guys, I was really hoping I could hax something useable together without having to resort to third party software though
Before I bite the bullet and weep gently at my desk, does anyone else have any ideas on how to get actual useful functionality out of the W10 start menu as is?

Ta.

Sorry I didn't mean to troll. If you actually try Classic Shell and not just go by the screenshots on the website, you may see that it has a Metro theme. You can choose between the Metro look, Windows 7 look, XP look, 9x look. I assumed that you would have at least tried Classic Shell before saying it only has the retro Windows 7 look.