NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, April 2011
Windows Lab - The Start Menu for Windows 7
By Barney Babin, Cajun Clickers Computer Club (LA)
member and instructor for XP, Vista Workshop and Windows 7
January 2010 issue, Cajun Clickers Computer News

http://www.clickers.org
ccnewsletter (at) cox.net (click to email author)

Every iteration of Microsoft’s Operating System since XP has had a Start Menu that functions basically the same; but Windows 7 has many distinctly different features that make it stand apart from the others. For example, when you open the Start Menu, your curser is automatically positioned in the “Search Programs and files” area (Fig. 1), just as in Vista, and is waiting for you to type something there. If you have no clue where something is located, or how to navigate to a specific place in your computer, type it into this area. As you start typing the item you are looking for, the search results will appear. When you see your item, stop typing, click it (fig. 2), and it will appear on your screen (Fig. 3).

I chose the item Getting Started to search for on purpose. As seen in Fig. 3, there are six items that can be double clicked for more useful information about that topic. For those of you who are new to Windows 7, I strongly urge you to look at these categories to glean a lot of useful information. If you notice the address window at the top of the item or the category where the item was listed on the search results, it can be found in the Control Panel, but since you searched on the item and opened it from search, knowing that this item exists in Control Panel is not necessary.

I also recommend that you click Control Panel and look at the various items listed there. You will soon discover that some of the items have changed names from previous versions of the Microsoft Operating Systems. For example, Add/Remove Programs in XP is now called Programs and Features. The functionality is basically the same; just the item name has changed.

Another new item in Windows 7 is the Action Center (Fig. 4), which can be found either in Control Panel, via the start menu search feature, or double clicking the white flag in the icons just to the left of the clock. In action center, you will find many things that are very useful such as Backup and Restore, User Accounts, Security, and maintenance; but as you have probably guessed by now, you can also access all of these items via the Start Menu search function.

You can also use the search function to search for words, phrases, titles, etc. of documents and access items in your search results directly from there.

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