Windows 10 Start Menu – That’s Useful

I’m not normally one to complain about Windows, there’s more than enough people doing more than enough complaining about it that I don’t feel the need to add my own frustrations but the start menu made something snap inside me just now and I had to let those frustrations see the light of day.

It’s the start menu in Windows 10 I just can’t stand it any more. I normally do everything I can to avoid the start menu as it’s simply broken on every design level but today I had the displeasure of having to go in there after installing SQL Server 2016 CTP 3.1. Normally what I’ll do is pin everything I want to use to the task bar and launch it from there. I can go weeks without having to go digging in the start menu (do they even call it the start menu any more?). After installing SQL Server though I had to dig in because, of course, the applications aren’t pinned to the task bar yet.

So Windows 10 rather than going to a sensible hierarchy of applications it goes for a list in alphabetical order. On my whacking great 4k monitor that list takes up about an 40 mm of screen width in the corner- why can’t it take up more. In fact why can’t it take up enough that I can actually read the names of the things I’m expected to click on!

Windows 10 Start Menu - Oh thats useful

Seriously, there’s 700mm of horizontal screen space that menu could take up and it occupies just 40mm of it for absolutely no good reason. Get a damn grip! I don’t want to waste my time trying to guess what application I’m going to launch from the first two characters of it’s name.