[Windows 10 Tip #3] - Where Is Everything?

Where's My Stuff in Windows 10?

Where is everything in Windows 10? For starters, the Start button is in the lower-left corner of the screen, as usual. But when you click on it, you get a totally new and baffling Start Menu. (See image below)

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There are three panels to this Start Menu. On the far left side several icons are stacked above the Start button. From the bottom up, they are Power, Settings, and Current User. Click on Power to find sleep, shutdown, and restart options. (If you have an older version of Win10, you may also see a File Explorer icon in this stack.)

The options for the Current User include signing out, locking the system temporarily, and changing the user’s account settings. The Settings icon opens the Settings app where many Windows options can be configured. The categories of settings are pretty logical and intuitive, and there’s a search box for finding a particular setting or function.

The search function on the Settings page does a haphazard job of finding things. Searching for “remove” or “uninstall” will retrieve the link to “Add or remove programs.” “Device Manager” finds Device Manager. But “Computer” or “My Computer” does not find the graphical representation of your PC. You’ll have to type “this pc” into the Taskbar’s search bar instead of the Settings search box. Unfortunately, all of the settings are not in Settings.

Entering “control panel” into the taskbar’s search box finds the old familiar Control Panel, except it isn’t the one found in Windows 7. Beginning in 2008, with Windows 8, Microsoft started migrating Control Panel functions to a new app called Settings. Nearly ten years later, that transition still isn’t done, so we have a confusing situation. Some Win 10 configuration functions are in Control Panel; others are in Settings. Some functions are in both places. And some functions work differently in Control Panel than they do in Settings. Yes, it’s ridiculous.

My solution is “GodMode,” a simple Windows hack that puts all configuration functions in one place. To activate GodMode in Windows 10, create a new folder on your desktop and paste the following line of text into the folder’s name field: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} The folder icon will change to a Control Panel icon. Click on it and behold all the configuration settings of Control Panel and Settings, neatly categorized and alphabetized, with a search box. The only problem is that you can’t pin that icon to the Start Menu or the Taskbar, nor can you create a shortcut for it.

Getting Back to the Start Menu...

The center panel of the Start Menu consists of small app icons arranged alphabetically. (If you don't see the alphabetical list of apps, you may have an older version of Windows 10. If so, click the "All Apps" icon on the left side of the Start Menu.) This is not very helpful if the app you want begins with “W.” But any of these apps can be pinned to the third, large panel on the right side of the Start Menu. Just right-click on an app icon and choose “Pin to Start” to create a tile for that app in the right-hand panel.

Conversely, you can unpin a tile from the right-hand panel, something I did many times in order to declutter my Start Menu. Right-click on a tile and select “Unpin from Start.” You can also pin app icons to the Taskbar, and unpin them. This option may be hidden beneath the “More” label displayed when you right-click on an icon.

Some apps, such as the Candy Crush game, can be uninstalled. Others, like Cortana, are Windows 10 features that cannot be uninstalled or removed from the Start Menu’s alphabetical list of apps. However, they can be unpinned from the large tiles area of the Start Menu.

After some tedious right-clicking and removing of unwanted apps, your Start Menu may have just a handful of tiles that are easily identified at a glance. As you add apps to your system, you can decide whether to pin them to the Start Menu or the Taskbar, or just leave them in the alphabetical list.

Some of those tiles on the Start Menu may be “live,” meaning they display data that is updated in real time. The Weather and News apps are examples. If the motion of live tiles bothers you, right-click on a tile, select More, and then select “Turn live tile off.”

Tiles can be organized into groups on the Start Menu. To move a tile from one group to another, just drag-and-drop it to the other group. To create a new group, drag a tile away from all the others until a light-blue bar appears; that’s the new group’s name box. Drop the tile in the new group and enter the group’s name in its name box.

Finding Your Files (and Where is the Library?)

To find your files, use the File Explorer icon on the Taskbar, or open the app that created them. File Explorer was called Windows Explorer in previous versions of Windows, and it operates pretty much the same. One change, which I think is for the better, is that the Libraries option is turned off in Windows 10 File Explorer.

I never liked the Libraries concept introduced in Windows 7, because it just seemed to add confusion. So good riddance. If you want to turn Libraries back on, right click the empty space In the left pane of File Explorer, and then click the "Show Libraries" item.

With these tips, you should be able to customize your Start Menu, tweak your Taskbar, and find your programs and files. Next week, we will explore Cortana, the Windows 10 virtual assistant.

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