His roundups of new features in Windows 10 updates have been called 'the most detailed, useful Windows version previews of anyone on the web' and covered by prominent Windows journalists like Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley on TWiT's Windows Weekly. Instructional tutorials he's written have been linked to by organizations like The New York Times, Wirecutter, Lifehacker, the BBC, CNET, Ars Technica, and John Gruber's Daring Fireball. The news he's broken has been covered by outlets like the BBC, The Verge, Slate, Gizmodo, Engadget, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, ZDNet, The Next Web, and Techmeme. Beyond the column, he wrote about everything from Windows to tech travel tips.

He founded PCWorld's 'World Beyond Windows' column, which covered the latest developments in open-source operating systems like Linux and Chrome OS. He also wrote the USA's most-saved article of 2021, according to Pocket.Ĭhris was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Beyond the web, his work has appeared in the print edition of The New York Times (September 9, 2019) and in PCWorld's print magazines, specifically in the August 2013 and July 2013 editions, where his story was on the cover. With over a decade of writing experience in the field of technology, Chris has written for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Reader's Digest, IDG's PCWorld, Digital Trends, and MakeUseOf. Chris has personally written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than one billion times-and that's just here at How-To Geek. If you've decided you don't want the Start menu open, press Esc.Chris Hoffman is the former Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. Once what you want to open is selected press Enter. Once in the area you want, use the arrow keys to navigate between each of the icons in the Start menu. Once the Start menu is open (using the Windows key), use the Tab to navigate between each of the ares of the Start menu. How to navigate the Start menu with the keyboard Moving the mouse pointer anywhere outside of the Start menu and clicking closes the Start menu. From this Start menu, you can access all your programs through the 'All apps' option and in the left pane. One of the most noticeable changes is the integration of tiles (from the Windows 8 start screen) into the Start menu. The Windows 10 Start menu made some drastic changes to the Start menu available in previous versions of Windows, as is immediately apparent in the picture below. You can also click the arrow next to the Shut down button to switch users, log off, restart, sleep, or hibernate the computer. Shut downĪt the bottom of the right pane is the Shut down button, which lets you turn the computer off. In the System window, you can view basic system properties, including the Windows version and access the Device Manager. You can find the version of Windows on your computer if you right-click Computer and select Properties. The right pane shows each of the more commonly accessed sections of the computer, such as your Computer, Control Panel, Documents, Music, and Pictures. This useful feature lets you type in the name of the program or file you're looking for and have the results displayed above. Searchĭirectly below the All Programs option is the 'Search' bar. All programsĪt the bottom of the left pane is the All Programs option that displays all programs installed on the computer. In the above example, there is one pinned program separated by a line and then the recently ran programs. The left pane shows recently started programs or any pinned program shortcuts. If you have Windows 10 Skip down to the Windows 10 Start menu section. Before the release of Windows 95, earlier versions of Windows (e.g., Windows 3.11) also did not have a Start menu.īelow is an overview of the Windows Start menu found in Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 7. The Microsoft Windows Start menu was introduced with Microsoft Windows 95, and since it's release, all versions of Windows except Windows 8 have a Start menu. What versions of Windows have the Start menu? Also, there are no smartphones or tablets with a Windows Start menu. Computer's that are not running Microsoft Windows (e.g., Linux computers and Apple computers) do not have a Start menu.

Microsoft windows 8 start menu