However, one area that is often left relatively untouched is the Start Menu. It’s probably the first thing you click on once your PC or laptop has booted up, but many choose to stick with Microsoft’s default layout. If you’d like to spice up what you see when you click the Windows icon, here are five aspects of the Windows 10 Start Menu that you can customise.
Resize the Start Menu
By default the Start Menu takes up about almost half of the screen. Resizing it is simple: If you’d prefer, you can also make the Start Menu take up the whole screen by default. Open Settings > Personalisation > Start and turn on the toggle which says ‘Use Start full screen’
Pin and unpin applications
You can pin an app from anywhere on the computer, although we’re using the desktop here. Simply right-click the icon and choose ‘Pin to Start’.
It will now appear as a new tile on the right side of the Start Menu, below any icons that are already there. To remove any app that has been pinned, just right-click on it in the Start Menu and choose ‘Unpin from Start’.
Customise live tiles
This is almost worth an article in its own right. First up is changing the size of live tiles:
You might also want to move tiles around within the Start Menu: What about if you don’t want these ‘live’ tiles to be live at all? Here’s how to stop it from displaying a slideshow of recent content:
The categories of live tiles are currently set to ‘Productivity’ and ‘Explore’ by default. Here’s how to customise them:
Change main colour
Add folders
Next to the live tiles, there’s a long list of programs arranged alphabetically. Here’s how to ensure there are also folders in that list:
These tips all apply to the Windows 10 Start Menu in its current iteration, but that may change in the upcoming redesign. As the resident expert on Windows, Senior Staff Writer Anyron’s main focus is PCs and laptops. Much of the rest of his time is split between smartphones, tablets and audio, with a particular focus on Android devices.
