With Windows 10, the good old Start menu has returned. But, this time, the Start menu includes the best of Windows 7’s Start menu and the live tile feature that we have seen in Windows 8. In other words, the left side of the Start menu offers quick folders to quickly access popular locations on your PC and the right side of the Start menu includes the live tiles feature introduced first in Windows 8.
If you have used Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 for a significant amount of time and love the Start screen, you’ll be glad to know that it’s possible to enable the Start screen in Windows 10 running on a desktop with mouse and keyboard.
In Windows 10, the Start menu is automatically enabled when Windows 10 is installed on a PC with a keyboard and mouse, and the Start screen gets turned on a touch device.
Note that when you enable the Start screen in Windows 10, Windows automatically turns off the Start menu and one can navigate to the Start screen by clicking on the Start button on the taskbar or pressing the Windows logo key on the keyboard.
Also read: How to install Windows 10 from a USB drive.
Turn on the Start screen in Windows 10
Method 1 of 2
Step 1: Open the Settings app. Navigate to Personalization > Start page.
Step 2: Here, turn on Use Start full screen option to enable the full-screen Start in Windows 10. Turn off the option to restore the normal Start menu.
Method 2 of 2
UPDATE: This method no longer works as Microsoft has moved the taskbar properties to the Settings app.
Step 1: Right-click on the Taskbar and then click Properties to open Taskbar and Navigation properties.
Step 2: Under, Navigation tab, look for the option labeled Use the Start menu instead of the Start screen and uncheck the same to turn off the Start menu and turn on the Start screen. Finally, click the Apply button.
You’ll need to sign out and then sign in again to start using the Start screen.
Good luck!
Xok Fef says
This post is USELESS beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Please remove it before casual inexperienced users try it and do real damage to their computers.
Anhitah says
Stupid site, this is for windows 10 tech preview
Sbuman says
useless. purchased a dell with windows 10. I don’t have the tab they point us to
Sam Tabor says
Worthless article, outdated
PAOLA says
I GOT TO THE “TASKBAR AND START MENU PROPERTIES” BUT I DON’T SEEM TO HAVE THE TAB “START MENU”.
Lightsttn1 says
The Start Menu panel, and related functions in Start Menu, and Taskbar properties in my Windows 10 Pro 64-bit are missing, and I need a way to repair this missing element of Windows. Does anyone know how to get them back? I tried re-installing Win 10 VIA upgrade, and that didn’t fix-it. Contacted Microsoft Support, and didn’t get anywhere either. I think they just help to make the problem worse.
Kaifee says
This is completely out of date.