Since the launch of Windows® 10, many users have endured minor skirmishes with it to try and make it behave more like Windows 7. Among the frustrations are the changes to the Start menu, which, although returned to us since the dark days of Windows 8, does not always function in a way familiar to Windows 7 folks.
If you’ve recently made the switch to Windows 10, as many people recently did to get in on the last wave of free upgrades, here are a few tips for managing list settings within the Start menu to better mimic Windows 7.
The first thing to note is that Windows 10 can display, as Windows 7 did, a list of recently opened files, but the approach is slightly different. To view the list, click an app’s icon in the All Apps list in the Start menu, or right-click the icon for an open app in the Windows taskbar. These actions will also display “jump lists” of the most common tasks within specific apps.
If you right-click on a tile in the Start menu, you will also see a list of recently opened websites and a Task list. The other handy option here is a menu for resizing the selected tile. You can, of course, simply pin your most used apps as tiles in the Start menu, but they will appear in the Most Used lists at the top of the Start menu.
If you don’t see the above lists, it’s likely the case that the option to view them is not enabled in Settings. To turn on this option:
- From the Start menu >> Settings
- Click the Personalization icon
- In the left-hand list, click Start
- From within the Start settings, enable Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar
Finally, if you use Windows 10 on a tablet or other touchscreen device, press and hold an app tile and then tap the Menu icon in the lower-right corner of the tile to see these same lists.
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