How to master the Anniversary Edition Start menu changes

1 THE NEW START MENU

Click the Start button to view the updated Start menu. The main changes are to the left-hand portion of the menu, as our annotated screenshot reveals. Now all your installed programs and apps are no longer hidden behind the ‘All apps’ sub-menu, and can be found underneath the ‘Recently added’ and ‘Most used’ lists, which remain in place

2 SPEED UP APP LAUNCHES

When you click the Start button, the Cortana search box is immediately highlighted — you can then start typing the name of the program you wish to launch and it’ll appear in the list, saving you the hassle of wading through the full ‘All apps’ list. The search is smart, too — type ‘office’, for example, and it’ll list associated Office apps such as Word, Excel and Power-Point.

3 BROWSE ‘ALL APPS’ QUICKLY

Alternatively, speed up browsing by clicking the ‘Recently added’ header to reveal an A-to-Z list, and click a letter to jump to that letter in the apps list. You’ll also see a clock icon — select this to jump back to the top of the list. Right-click an app entry to access the same options as before, including the ‘Don’t show in this list’ option if you want to trim the apps list back.

4 CHASEABLE LIVE TILES

One big change to the way Start menu tiles behave is that they can now be coded as ‘chaseable’ by the app developer. This means that if they’re displaying live content like a news headline, then clicking the tile will take you directly to the content rather than the app’s main screen. This requires app support — at time of writing, MS Power user is one such app.

5 START MENU ICONS

The left-hand column displays four icons. Click the user photo for sign-out options, and right-click File Explorer for Quick Access shortcuts and a ‘More’ sub-menu with options for ‘Computer Management’ and ‘System Properties’. Go to ‘Start > Settings > Personalisation > Start to add user folder shortcuts here’ to add other user folder shortcuts.

7 TASKBAR TWEAKS

The only real visible change to the Taskbar is the new Notifications button, which now sits on the far right and displays the number of unread notifications it contains. There’s also a new Windows Ink option when you right-click the Taskbar. Ticking this reveals a pen-like button — click it to bring up the new Windows Ink Workspace.

9 NEW TASKBAR SETTINGS

Previously, the Taskbar settings were split across three tabs — now they’ve all been merged into one section, with the options mixed up. One new setting allows you to hide the taskbar when in Tablet Mode, while there’s a new ‘Multiple displays’ section that enables you to configure how the taskbar behaves when you’ve spread your display over two or more monitors.

6 TABLET MODE CHANGES

The Start menu’s appearance has changed in Tablet Mode too, and it now more closely resembles the old Windows 8 Metro user interface. Pinned tiles are shown by default, but you can quickly switch to ‘All apps’ view with one click, while once again the options on the left have been reduced to single buttons — click the ‘hamburger’ icon to expand them and reveal their titles.

8 TWEAK TASKBAR SETTINGS

The Anniversary Edition moves Taskbar settings from their own pop-up dialogue box to a brand-new Taskbar section inside the main Settings app, which you’ll find under ‘Personalisation’ adjacent to the settings for tweaking the Start menu. The quickest way to access the Taskbar portion of Settings is by right-clicking the Taskbar and selecting ‘Settings’, which takes you directly to it.

10 CUSTOMISE THE NOTIFICATION AREA

You’ll also find a shortcut to choosing how programs’ Taskbar notification icons are displayed — this has been moved from its old location under ‘System > Notifications & actions’. A simpler way to customise how these icons behave is to drag and drop them to and from the Taskbar (using the hidden area that appears when you click the ^ button to the left of the icons).