There has been a lot of discussion around Windows 11, the start menu, taskbar, etc. and I felt that some changes annoyed me more than others. In thinking why, I ended up realising how I have set up Windows when it comes to starting applications. This post documents that thought process.

Background

I have used Windows 95+ since 1996 even though from 1996 – 2000, OS/2 Warp 4 was my daily driver. I got my first laptop (IBM Thinkpad) in 2000 and it came pre-installed with Windows 98 Second Edition and that became my main OS for a number of years – moving thereafter to Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 10. I’m not on Windows 10 on one machine and reluctantly moving to Windows 11 on the other. I fully expect to use Windows 11 most of the time later this year.

Windows 98 was also where I started customising how things worked for me and that trend continued through. I remember changing my startup screen and the shut down image for a while but the biggest change was in using the Start Menu and the Quick Launch (on the taskbar) – ideas that have served me now for more than 20 years.

Start Menu: Zero Clicks

I still use the “classic” start menu (I have used Classic Shell / OpenShell for many years) and I organise it as shown in the picture below. Note that OpenShell lets you press [Shift] + Windows to launch the new start menu, so that’s always available if I need it (which I use sparingly).

The main addition that I have done are the folders of shortcuts that you see. These are:

• major-proj : one of my major projects that has material in different parts of my PC but linked from here
• Goto : short cuts to drives and major folders
• Other Machines : not used much any more, but shortcuts to RDP files, VMs, and even command files to launch PuTTY to get into some remote machines
• Q : Quick Access (for applications)
• W : Whatever Else (a second list of applications)
• X Org : Extreme Organisation (just so it starts with “X”) – links to organisation tools such as Project, To-do, Raindrop, etc.
• Z : Zatabase (instead of Database, but so it starts with “Z”) – links to DB tools (not used much any more)

The key idea here was that all these folders started with unique letters so that if I pressed the Windows key and that letter (M, G, O, Q, W, X, Y, Z) it matched nothing else on the menu and would take me to that folder and expand it. Let’s look at the “Q” menu expanded

As you see now, it has a list of appplications that each starts with a different letter again so that typing that letter uniquely picks that application, example:

• C – Calculator
• D – DOS (windows command)
• J – JukeAMP (renamed WinAMP)
• O – OneNote
• P – Powerpoint
• W – Word
• X – Xcel (renamed Excel)

I used to have other ones earlier which have dropped in how they are launched or are not relevant any more (e.g., A – Acrobat, C – C++ Builder, E – Evernote, G – Google Chrome, V – Visual Studio, etc.) or are not installed on this computer. In a similar way, I have shortcuts in the other menus (W, X, Z) though over the years, I use fewer tools and some of these could be collapsed together now.

I want to also show the “Goto” menu quickly and you’ll see that again, the idea is that the list is unique:

• E – E-books folder
• C and D – for the drives
• 1 – OneDrive Personal
• O – One Drive Work
• B – for BoxDrop, meaning DropBox (since “D” is used for “D Drive”)
• J – Jekyll blog (my blog folder)
• Some other work related folders

What’s the advantage? The main advantage of this approach is that I can access all of these using zero clicks – I rely on muscle memory most of the time. In the middle of something, I need a calculator: I just do [Windows] + Q + C, need to open Excel to calculate something: [Windows] + Q + P, want to go to Microsoft Paint: [Windows] + W + P, need D Drive: [Windows] + G + D and so on. This zero-click approach makes it really easy to start something that I might need to get access to quickly without interrupting my flow. Of course, I can click through and select these, but this makes this kind of a start menu really useful for me – I’m not advocating that you need to use it, but I like that I am able to use it this way without creating Windows system-level short cuts, so to speak.

Windows 11 still lets you install OpenShell which gives me this menu ability – and I’m happy to have it work this way. Move Start button to left from the taskbar settings and use OpenShell to have this menu, and fall back to [Shift] + [Windows] for the Windows Start Menu for the few cases where I might need it.

Quick Launch: From Zero Clicks to One

The next set of applications is launched from the Quick Launch bar, and this is most strongly disrupted in Windows 11 for me. Take a look at my Quick Launch bar in Windows 10. I have here a list of applications that I use regularly but don’t really expect to launch directly via shortcuts – I just normally click on the icon here to launch the application.

When I set it up, I did not think why I put these applications here, but in retrospect, I realise that most of the time, these are applications that:

• Take longer to launch: example are VS Code, C++ Builder, PodMan, Virtual Box, etc.
• Are launched once but live long: examples are Outlook, Thunderbird, Edge, Firefox, etc.
• Are not usually launched “in the flow”: examples are most of the above and other apps like Typora, GitAhead, etc.
• Are special: actually, the main example is the Windows console that has 2 entries: one as regular user and one shortcut that launches it as an Administrator

I also think that I occasionally think of these applications as launched a bit more lazily and often with a mouse and not the keyboard – I can’t explain why but this is how my brain has adapted to it. Of course, I could put these into start somewhere and then click and launch, but that would be multiple clicks and somehow, it feels not ideal.

Importantly, in my setup:

• The Quick Launch bar is double height to accommodate more icons
• It uses Small Icons to accommodate more icons – I click with the mouse, so I don’t need “touch targets”
• Each shortcut is actually numbered – e.g., “07 – GitHub Desktop”, “08 – VS Code” and so on, so that each icon appears at exactly the same place on restart
• The Quick Launch bar is resized to fit exactly 2 equal width rows of an equal number of icons

Again, it might just be me, but this setup is something that I have used for many, many years – and it affects me when it becomes unavailable in Windows. I don’t mind the work that Microsoft does in modernising the system but I feel seasoned users have their own workflows and these get disrupted when the entire feature becomes unavailable altogether.

Windows 11 kneecaps this in a couple of ways:

• Quick Launch of this kind is removed
• Double height and small icons don’t work on the Taskbar

What’s wrong with pinning to task bar? That’s a reasonable question and I think the main annoyance I have with it is that it opens the Window at the place where you click the icon. So, you have: [Explorer Icon] [Edge Icon] [Firefox Icon] and then you open Explorer, now you get: [Explorer Window] [Edge Icon] ... and your icons are shifted, so you have to scan and find the Edge icon again because it’s no longer at the same place. It’s an annoyance that kills muscle memory – I just wish it wasn’t required.

While on One Click, I think the notification area is also an area that I use to launch some applications – Dropbox and OneDrive are obvious ones, but also things like Teams, Changing my performance level on the laptop, and so on. It would really help if Windows 11 allowed double height with small icons for this also.

More Clicks

For things that I use rarely (e.g., launching Acrobat instead of clicking on a PDF file, or Wacom Table tools, and so on), I’m happy to navigate the menus. I still prefer the older “Programs” and “Apps” menus that OpenShell give me but these require more attention and I’m fine following whichever method as long as I can get to what I want. But if you look at 7-Zip, in the new menu, it shows only “7-Zip Help” under the folder while the classic menu, under Programs, shows Help and the “7-Zip File Manager” (which is arguably more useful). Of course, I don’t know if this is an application developr’s fault or a Windows thing, but it adds to the frustration and the feeling that the new menu is too smart for its own good.

When I think back at how I have been using Windows around these features, a new menu like this really breaks the flow and is very disorienting, to say the least.

If you have some comments, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to connect or share the post (you can tag me as @onghu on X or on Mastodon as @onghu@ruby.social or @onghu.com on Bluesky to discuss more).