Windows 11 - lightweight? fast? and Android?

[robbiekhan]

You mean metro style? No no no. Just no. It was the worst start menu by far. MS then later revised it so it became much better if I recall and I switched back to it as it had grouped folders for apps you could organise finally. Which is where Win11 is heading later in the year.

For now though StartAllBack enables the old skool start menu which is much nicer and you can actually organise stuff and compact it so it takes up less space:

[paulrockliffe]

Can't agree with that at all. Any of the start menu approaches that don't use the whole screen are wasting space and will always be objectively worse than they would be if they just used the rest of the screen. Why on earth would you want a massive list of apps with sub-lists built in, when you have the rest of that screen to use?

The full screen start menu let you organise your apps into groups, put shortcuts on there and generally get everything you use regularly in easy reach. Its endless scroll means you can either organise everything to death, or rely on the All Apps button to go to a list. Combine that with the Search + Enter to open, only having open apps on the Taskbar, then sensible use of open on start and that was peak organisation for me.

But really my point was rather than spend time and resource agonising over what the best approach is for *everyone* and then getting shouted at for changing it again, build new options and fix the complaints people have when trying to fit their workflow into the OS. I've definitely written this post before!

So rather than designing that new Start thing that's in the wrong place, too small and can't be adequately customised, spend the time on things like quick-launch groups, so if I'm working on x project I can launch the 4 programs I need, the 3 files, the Teams Chat and the two websites that I need. Let me save these groups from open applications, set them to launch on their own Virtual Desktop, launch them from the Virtual Desktop menu, add a pause button when I'm done that prompts for updates on the files, or the group, which feeds through to Microsoft's Task Management Apps.

The Start could be invisible, it's only intrusive because it's oriented around Programs and Files rather than Tasks. Stop messing with it and fix that underlying concept.

[TameRacingDriver]

Agree. I always felt it odd the amount of flack that the full screen start menu got. I also felt it's implementation in win 8.1 was superior to in 10. I never understood why you can't simply pin anything you want in the start menu without resorting to hacks or workarounds.

Personally I feel windows is a bit crap really and has been forever, they just don't seem to ever get it right before changing things yet again.

[robbiekhan]

A start "menu" using the full screen, is literally a waste of space. All you are doing is launching an app, there is no logic in using the whole screen do do that - Which is why it is a thing of the past and is not on any roadmap to ever return.

The dynamic nature of the current start menu and taskbar for finding (search) and launching (click) files and apps is much more intuitive and streamlined/efficient. Plus it doesn't take foreground focus away from the core task you are working on like the full screen one used to.

Edited by robbiekhan on Monday 18th April 14:16

[xeny]

robbiekhan said:

A start "menu" using the full screen, is literally a waste of space. All you are doing is launching an app, there is no logic in using the whole screen do do that - Which is why it is a thing of the past and is not on any roadmap to ever return.

Is it? I don't think you can do anything else with the start menu open, so why use the space to display as much information as possible, or use use the space to display larger icons so you can most easily find/hit them with a mouse pointer, if you're the kind of person that launches applications by clicking on something? Isn't a start menu that doesn't use the whole screen a waste of space?

My personal issue with the Windows 11 UI is the taskbar's inability to display an icon per window.

[FourWheelDrift]

robbiekhan said:

For now though StartAllBack enables the old skool start menu which is much nicer and you can actually organise stuff and compact it so it takes up less space:

Customise the start menu, compact and take up less space, just like Windows 11 then.

[robbiekhan]

No the 11's default start menu is still bulky and offers no measure of customisation (yet). It is just like what Windows 10 was like Then several months later MS started to add features and finally we got a smart and usable start menu on Windows 10.

xeny said:

Is it? I don't think you can do anything else with the start menu open, so why use the space to display as much information as possible, or use use the space to display larger icons so you can most easily find/hit them with a mouse pointer, if you're the kind of person that launches applications by clicking on something? Isn't a start menu that doesn't use the whole screen a waste of space?

My personal issue with the Windows 11 UI is the taskbar's inability to display an icon per window.

Bigger icons and more space waste is not necessary for the start menu. That's my (and many others) point. A more efficient start menu is what has always been desired, and minimal in terms of space consumed on screen with smart features like Finder and context aware searching are more important. Windows 11 removed a lot of these features out of the box, especially stuff like grouping start menu items or choosing the size of icons etc. This is something that is coming back around August time though in the next big feature update.

Why would a start menu not using the whole screen be a waste of space? There is no amount of apps installed that requires a full screen start menu to find them easier, if a big icon and full screen is needed for a start menu for any given user, then that user may have a sight issue rather than the issue being the start menu itself.

Yes this is pretty blunt yet to the point, but I've been both customising and using out of the box Windows in both work and home environments as well as deploying both styles in corporate for a decade+ and logically a full screen start menu never worked for efficiency or productivity, those who seem to disagree are certainly in the minority as well.

As for the individual icons on the taskbar in Windows 11, well that is coming back in some form later in the year, but for now there are plenty of ways to manually bring it back, as per my image above, StartAllBack does it perfectly, and these tools have 0% impact on resources or compromise any part of Windows or the UX in any other way whatsoever other than to improve the experience and bring back control to the user.

If you really do want a full screen start menu, then just like StartAllBack exists, other tools exist to bring that metro-style start menu back too. We are on Windows here not MacOS, the options available are near limitless thanks to the customisation community.

Edited by robbiekhan on Monday 18th April 18:40

[xeny]

robbiekhan said:

Why would a start menu not using the whole screen be a waste of space? There is no amount of apps installed that requires a full screen start menu to find them easier, if a big icon and full screen is needed for a start menu for any given user, then that user may have a sight issue rather than the issue being the start menu itself.

Yes this is pretty blunt yet to the point, but I've been both customising and using out of the box Windows in both work and home environments as well as deploying both styles in corporate for a decade+ and logically a full screen start menu never worked for efficiency or productivity, those who seem to disagree are certainly in the minority as well.

I concur with more efficient is desirable.

In my rather longer experience of using windows, going back to only having standard mode supporting hardware, I have encountered people whose sight or hand eye co-ordination is an issue - what is the _benefit_ of a start menu smaller than whole screen - you've paid for those pixels, why not put something on them?

[TameRacingDriver]

I can see both points of view, personally. I said earlier I didn't understand the flack the full screen start menu got, but personally, I didn't use it, I most likely would struggle to fill a 21:9 1440p screen with enough icons to make it worthwhile, but I understand the benefits from an accessibility standpoint, as a tablet interface, or just as a preference thing.

A smaller menu means the user isn't forced to look all over the screen for the icons. It has the downside that it can't use widgets or display information, but that's what the widgets bar is for.

For me, I should be able to pin anything I like to the start menu. Files, URLs, apps, shortcuts to folders, with no restrictions. There should be a small (as it is now) and full screen options, the latter being a bit like the Launchpad on MacOS, with the ability to pin anything as previously said, accompanied by a spotlight style search.

[paulrockliffe]

TameRacingDriver said:

I can see both points of view, personally. I said earlier I didn't understand the flack the full screen start menu got, but personally, I didn't use it, I most likely would struggle to fill a 21:9 1440p screen with enough icons to make it worthwhile, but I understand the benefits from an accessibility standpoint, as a tablet interface, or just as a preference thing.

A smaller menu means the user isn't forced to look all over the screen for the icons. It has the downside that it can't use widgets or display information, but that's what the widgets bar is for.

For me, I should be able to pin anything I like to the start menu. Files, URLs, apps, shortcuts to folders, with no restrictions. There should be a small (as it is now) and full screen options, the latter being a bit like the Launchpad on MacOS, with the ability to pin anything as previously said, accompanied by a spotlight style search.

Yep, full screen isn't about having bigger buttons, it's about having more options. You can't do anything on the rest of the screen with Start open, other than close start, but with full-screen start you can. If you want, or you don't have to if you prefer. One option is restrictive, the other is not.

Rather than mess around with it, they could have sorted it so you could apps, files, folders, URLs, anything to a Group, give it a name and a button to launch the whole group. Then shrink it to a single button and after lunch on day 1, design a clever tool for quickly pulling all those resources together to create the groups and then on the second day you could integrate Start and Virtual Desktop manager too - drag and drop the group to a series of Desktop tabs, bespoke Start Menus for different Virtual Desktops so you can setup different activities on different desktops and flick between them without having to deal with Windows being utterly terrible at putting stuff back where it was when you restart.

Then what about a permanent start menu option? One of my 5 monitors is a 7" touchscreen, I use it for music, but it would work well as a location for a permanent Start menu, or on a wide or second screen a side-bar that scrolled the Start contents might be popular.

My main objection is that they took it away, apparently so they could bring it back a year later, because why exactly? And haven't built any of the stuff people are actually asking for.

Does anyone prefer the default W11 Start menu? I'm looking at it now; it takes up 1/8th of one of my 5 screens, yet it lets me pin apps and these are now spanning across 2 'pages' within the start menu. It offends me just looking at it, how on earth doesn't it just scale to the number of pinned apps? I could almost get on board with that. Almost.

Pinned apps has two dots to indicate that there are two pages, yet under it there is a section for things Windows is recommending to me. That has a 'More' button. I can scroll the Pinned apps, but More recommendations takes over the whole menu. Again, why? Recommendations is a list of files I've recently used and recent apps I've installed. I can pin the apps, but not the files. Again, why? What's the point in being able to get to recent files there when file explorer has a full list of them and they're always either listed, or available in File Explorer. Who checks on Start first to see if it's listing the file?

Last complaint; I can customise start to show more pinned apps, so now page 2 has only one row of apps on it. And it's recommending just the two most recent files now. Beyond pointless.

[TameRacingDriver]

I've given up hoping for anything polished and submitted to the reality of just working around issues as best I can. An example of the fact they don't get about your UX is the fact the most upvoted request is to be able to move the taskbar, but MS have made a bunch of excuses why it can't be done despite the fact the old one did it fine (if not very attractively, such is MS). It seems to be too much to hope for that we can have an OS with a consistent design AND give the user the options they ask for. Never mind asking for both, we can't seem to have either

[robbiekhan]

TameRacingDriver said:

I can see both points of view, personally. I said earlier I didn't understand the flack the full screen start menu got, but personally, I didn't use it, I most likely would struggle to fill a 21:9 1440p screen with enough icons to make it worthwhile, but I understand the benefits from an accessibility standpoint, as a tablet interface, or just as a preference thing.

A smaller menu means the user isn't forced to look all over the screen for the icons. It has the downside that it can't use widgets or display information, but that's what the widgets bar is for.

For me, I should be able to pin anything I like to the start menu. Files, URLs, apps, shortcuts to folders, with no restrictions. There should be a small (as it is now) and full screen options, the latter being a bit like the Launchpad on MacOS, with the ability to pin anything as previously said, accompanied by a spotlight style search.

Yup that's exactly it, having the options baked in would be the best option and it seems MS are putting back (or adding) a bunch in future updates which is good, but there is still loads of room for improvement and that gap, for now, is being filled by third party tools that add those features - Which is also fine, but it just would be best to have then all part of Windows from the get-go really.

Valid point about full screen start menu on a 21:9 monitor, I can't imagine constantly moving my head left and right just to get from one end to the other to launch an app or file.

Being able to pin anything you want to an area of the start menu should be entirely possible I agree. The current size of the WIn11 start menu is ample for this use, and like when you enable never combine for the taskbar, the start menu should dynamically expand and contract depending on what you are doing with it at any given moment so as to keep usability and aesthetics pretty consistent throughout.

[zippy3x]

I love reading people's arguments about the start menu. It's like listening to opinions on the best scythe for cutting your lawn.

I haven't used the start menu since Windows 7. All my main 5 or 6 apps are pinned to the task bar, with everything else accessed by pressing the Windows key and usually one or two letters of the app name.

[paulrockliffe]

zippy3x said:

I love reading people's arguments about the start menu. It's like listening to opinions on the best scythe for cutting your lawn.

I haven't used the start menu since Windows 7. All my main 5 or 6 apps are pinned to the task bar, with everything else accessed by pressing the Windows key and usually one or two letters of the app name.

Ha ha, yeah, that's true. I don't actually click on stuff from Start very often anyway. Though I know that I would if could make it Task oriented rather than App oriented.

Pinned Taskbar is just another variation of the Start Menu though, what you're doing is choosing to have your mini start always visible. I used to do that too, but I much prefer reserving the Taskbar for open applications, with the Start Menu available on button press. I moved away from pinning to Taskbar because of Fullscreen Start and also the advent of Virtual Desktops because the Taskbar showing only open Apps becomes the visual clue for which Desktop you're on.

[boxedin]

zippy3x said:

I love reading people's arguments about the start menu. It's like listening to opinions on the best scythe for cutting your lawn.

I haven't used the start menu since Windows 7. All my main 5 or 6 apps are pinned to the task bar, with everything else accessed by pressing the Windows key and usually one or two letters of the app name.

This.

This is also how I used OSX from, argh, over 20 years ago now.

The start menu can go in the bin, search and some key apps in the task bar is all you need.

GNOME has a good variant, but it's full-text-search ( tracker ) is lacking IME.

[RVB]

zippy3x said:

...All my main 5 or 6 apps are pinned to the task bar...

Same here.

Currently I have 17 apps pinned on the task bar and my internet browser has 22 'favourites' with abbreviated names (to save space) on the favourites bar.

Any of 17 apps and 22 websites are available with just one click on my screen.

Edited by RVB on Tuesday 19th April 17:14

[paulrockliffe]

RVB said:

zippy3x said:

...All my main 5 or 6 apps are pinned to the task bar...

Same here.

Currently I have 17 apps pinned on the task bar and my internet browser has 22 'favourites' with abbreviated names (to save space) on the favourites bar.

Any of 17 apps and 22 websites are available with just one click on my screen.

Edited by RVB on Tuesday 19th April 17:14

But conversely your screen is messy and full of stuff that 90% of the time you don't need such easy access to.

I've been waiting for a new touchscreen to arrive for a car project, it came yesterday and I discovered that Android Auto won't support it's resolution and that the one I thought was broken was suffering from a faulty USB cable so that can go in the car now its touch panel is working.

I've added this 9" screen to my desktop setup as it makes a neat music player with the touchscreen, maybe I should make my own Start Menu as an application and simply put it on that screen.

[TameRacingDriver]

paulrockliffe said:

But conversely your screen is messy and full of stuff that 90% of the time you don't need such easy access to.

This is an internal battle I have all the time. I seem to alternate between having pinned taskbar icons for my regular apps, or having them hidden and launching apps from Start Menu and have only running tasks on the taskbar in uncombine / label mode. I find both methods have their pros and cons but Microsoft is clearly favouring the former, given they removed the ability to uncombine and add labels in Win11.

I like having my apps within a single click away pinned on the taskbar, but find it's easier to manage window clutter with uncombined/labelled, easier to see what's open at a glance, and if I have several Word documents open (for example), I can see them on the Taskbar without clicking the Word icon first. Sometimes I have a mental block as to which application a file is open in, so being able to see the title and position on the Taskbar is helpful.

I'll concede it's probably best to get used to grouped icons now as MS seems to have no intention to restore the option to have uncombined icons, so I tend to stick with that to make the inevitable switch to Win11 (which I'm already using on my personal laptop) a little less jarring. I know I can restore functionality with 3rd party apps but that's not always possible on work machines.

This all sounds very nerdy however I am always in the pursuit of ultimately making everything more efficient, so this stuff really interests me.

[paulrockliffe]

TameRacingDriver said:

paulrockliffe said:

But conversely your screen is messy and full of stuff that 90% of the time you don't need such easy access to.

This is an internal battle I have all the time. I seem to alternate between having pinned taskbar icons for my regular apps, or having them hidden and launching apps from Start Menu and have only running tasks on the taskbar in uncombine / label mode. I find both methods have their pros and cons but Microsoft is clearly favouring the former, given they removed the ability to uncombine and add labels in Win11.

This all sounds very nerdy however I am always in the pursuit of ultimately making everything more efficient, so this stuff really interests me.

Same, but what tipped me away from pinning to the Taskbar ultimately was using Virtual Desktops and setting those to only show app windows that are open on that screen and on that desktop. So much simpler to find all the open apps across multiple projects without the same pinned apps alongside each list.

It's a shame Microsoft aren't bothered the same way.

[robbiekhan]

EdWrong thread*