Ed Bott - Windows 10 Support Secrets

18 CHAPTER 2 | Personalizing the Windows 10 experience That distinctive logo is still in the same place at the left of the Windows 10 taskbar, but the text is now hidden by default. Click the button in the upper-left corner to display labels for the column of icons on the left, with Start at the top. Despite two decades’ worth of visual changes, what happens when you click the Start button has remained consistent through the years, at least in broad terms. In Windows 10, Start blends elements of the original Windows 7–style Start menu and the Windows 8 Start screen. The result looks something like what you see in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1: Since the initial release of Windows 10, Start has evolved. This layout, with a scrolling alphabetical list of apps on the left, is new in the 2016 Anniversary Update. Note The arrangement of elements on your Start menu might look a bit different from what you see in Figure 2-1. If you see an All Apps button instead of a scrolling list, for example, you’re running Windows 10, version 1511. The changes visible here are a part of the Anniversary Update, version 1607, which was available as a near-final preview at the time this book was prepared. Building the perfect Start menu in Windows 10 isn’t something you do in one session. Instead, it’s an iterative process that occurs over time, as you remove clutter, add new apps, and arrange tiles and folder shortcuts for quick access. Some of those customizations involve dragging and dropping; others rely on shortcut menus that you can access with a right-click. A few global options appear in Settings > Personalization > Start, as shown in Figure 2-2.