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Change Start menu in Windows

Last modified: 2011-12-29 13:50:53 EET

Start menu opens either by clicking the Start button, pressing Windows Key or using keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Esc.

Windows XP has a somewhat old-style Start menu (that some people like very much) - you have to open the All Programs list and then scroll through it to find and launch a program.
In Windows Vista and Windows 7, just type in a few letter of that program's name to Start menu Search box. For example, if you want to open Microsoft Security Essentials, type in "security" and click the program name.

Start menu Search box in Windows Vista and 7 also searches from Control Panel, your documents and libraries and e-mails. No need to open Control Panel and start looking for something in the maze of options! The same Search box works also like Run command in previous Windowses did - so to run cmd.exe (Command Prompt), type it in and press Enter key on your keyboard.

With User Account Control you sometimes need to launch programs with administrative rights (elevated privileges). To do that, right-click on the program name and select Run as administrator. You can also run a program as an administrator by stopping your mouse pointer on the program name (or navigating with arrow keys) and using keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

Because Start menu options are so different in each version of Windows, the customization part has been divided into three separate articles:

• Customize Start menu in Windows XP
• Customize Start menu in Windows Vista
• Customize Start menu in Windows 7

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