Section 2.4. What s in the Start Menu


2.4. What's in the Start Menu

The following pages take you on a whirlwind tour of the Start menu itselffrom the bottom up, left to right, the way your mouse encounters its contents as it moves up from the Start button.

2.4.1. Search Box

This thing is awesome .

The instant you pop open the Start menu, your insertion point blinks in the new Start Search box at the bottom of the menu (Figure 2-4). That's your cue that you can begin typing the name of whatever you want to open .

Figure 2-4. As you type, Vista winnows down the list of found items, letter by letter. (You don't have to type the search term and then press Enter.) If the list of results is too long to fit the Start menu, click "See all results" below the list. In any case, Vista highlights the first item in the results. If that's what you want to open, press Enter. If not, you can click what you want to open, or use the arrow keys to walk down the list and then press Enter to open something.


The instant you start to type, you trigger Vista's new, very fast, whole-computer search function. This search finds, among other things, anything in the Start menu, making it a very quick way to pull up something without having to click through a bunch of Start menu submenus.

You can read the meaty details about Search in Chapter 4.

2.4.2. All Programs

When you click All Programs, you're presented with an important list indeed: the master catalog of every program on your computer. You can jump directly to your word processor, calendar, or favorite game, for example, just by choosing its name from the Start All Programs menu.

Rather than covering up the regularly scheduled Start menu (as it did in Windows XP), the All Programs list replaces it (or at least the left-side column of it).

You can restore the original left-side column by clicking Back (at the bottom of the list) or pressing the Esc key.

2.4.3. Folders

As you'll quickly discover, the All Programs list in Vista doesn't just list programs. It also houses a number of folders . Some of them bear the names of software you've installed; you might see a folder called, for example, Urge (Microsoft's online music-store partner) or Logitech. These generally contain programs, uninstallers, instruction manuals, and other related junk.


Tip: When you open something that contains other thingslike a folder listed in the Start menuyou see its contents listed beneath , indented slightly, as shown in Figure 2-5. Click the folder name again to collapse the sublisting.Keyboard freaks should note that you can also open a highlighted folder in the list by pressing the Enter key (or the right arrow key). Close the folder by pressing Enter again (or the left arrow key).

Figure 2-5. It's easy to add a program or document icon to your Startup folder so that it launches automatically every time you turn on the computer. Here, a document from the Documents folder is being added. You may also want to add a shortcut for the Documents folder itself, which ensures that its window will be ready and open each time the computer starts up.


Another set of folders is designed to trim down the Programs menu by consolidating related programs, like Games, Accessories (little single-purpose programs), and Extras and Upgrades. Everything in these folders is described in Chapter 6.

2.4.3.1. The Startup folder

This folder contains programs that load automatically every time you start Windows Vista. This can be a very useful feature. For instance, if you check your email every morning, you may as well save yourself a few mouse clicks by putting your email program into the Startup folder. If you spend all day long word processing, you may as well put Microsoft Word in there.

Of course, you may be interested in the Startup folder for a different reason: to stop some program from launching itself. This is a particularly common syndrome if somebody else set up your PC. Some program seems to launch itself, unbidden, every time you turn the machine on.

Fortunately, it's easy to either add or remove items from the Startup folder:

  • Deleting something . With the Startup folder's listing visible in the All Programs menu, right-click whatever you want to delete. From the shortcut menu, choose Delete. Click Yes to send the icon to the Recycle Bin.

    Enjoy your newfound freedom from self-launching software.

  • Adding something . With the All Programs list open, right-click the Startup folder and, from the shortcut menu, choose Open. You've just opened the Startup folder itself.

    Once its window is open, navigate to the disk, folder, application , or document icon you want to add. (Navigating your files and folders is described in the following chapters.)

    Using the right mouse button, drag the icon directly into the Startup window, as shown in Figure 2-5. When you release the button, a shortcut menu appears; from the shortcut menu, choose Create Shortcuts Here.

    Close any windows you've opened. From now on, each time you turn on or restart your computer, the program, file, disk, or folder you dragged will open by itself.




Windows Vista for Starters
Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596528264
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 175
Authors: David Pogue

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