Even advanced users liked the Windows XP Start menu

Raymond Chen June 22, 2007 Jun 22, 2007 06/22/07

In addition to testing out the Windows XP Start menu on beginners, we asked advanced users (including lots of system administrators) what they thought of it, and the response was still positive. This was kind of surprising, for advanced users tend to be resistant to change. In fact, system administrators like the new Start menu so much ...

How does the Windows XP Start menu decide that a program is newly-installed?

Raymond Chen June 21, 2007 Jun 21, 2007 06/21/07

Actually, I discussed this topic already, but I'm mentioning it again here since it's thematically related to the other Start menu articles. I'm told that there have been a few tweaks to the rules for Windows Vista. Some installers set the time stamps on the program to match the time stamp of the install media. This makes for pretty ...

More Start menu fine-tuning: Choosing a better representative for a frequently-run program

Raymond Chen June 20, 2007 Jun 20, 2007 06/20/07

If you paid really close attention to the way a representative shortcut is selected for a program, you may have noticed a problem with it. Here's the rule again: If there are multiple shortcuts to the same program, then the most-frequently-used shortcut is selected as the one to appear on the front page of the Start menu. Suppose there ...

What is the impact on the Start menu of long-running programs?

Raymond Chen June 19, 2007 Jun 19, 2007 06/19/07

Let's take another look at the basic principle that determines which programs show up in the Start menu: Each time you launch a program, it "earns a point", and the longer you don't launch a program, the more points it loses. If you stare at this long enough, you might see a hole in this principle: What about a program that you launch once...

Why does a new user get stuff on their Start menu right off the bat?

Raymond Chen June 18, 2007 Jun 18, 2007 06/18/07

In the initial designs for the Start menu, the list of most-frequently-used programs on the Start menu would be completely empty the first time you opened it. This was perfectly logical, since you hadn't run any programs at all yet, so nothing was frequently-used because nothing had been used at all! Perfectly logical and completely stupid-...

"Super" watch, episode 2

Raymond Chen June 15, 2007 Jun 15, 2007 06/15/07

Not just "super exciting" but "super-super-exciting". (But at least he's not super super super excited.) I don't consider this super encouraging. Episode 1...