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These five apps offer a solution that Microsoft itself seems to not understand: Give the users what they want, and the power to tweak it to their requirements.
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But that’s not happening: Microsoft’s poor compromise of linking the Start button and the Start page still leaves a features gap that these utilities address.
#Pokki start menu windows 8.1
When Windows 8.1 was first announced, we thought these apps might be finished. These apps smarten the Start in Windows 8.1
#Pokki start menu install
Overall, Pokki still provides an excellent accompaniment to the Microsoft Start menu and Start page, allowing you to start programs faster and more efficiently, and install new ones quicker and easier than you could via Microsoft’s own App Store. If you don’t want to scroll between pages, a text window at the top of the menu allows you to search by name: Just type the first letter, and the list of shortcuts that begin with that letter show up. You can pin any installed program to a spot on the home menu, which can hold up to 25 program shortcuts per page (there are four additional pages available, for a total of 125 shortcuts). Pokki also offers a range of free programs (such as Angry Birds and Instagram client Instagrille) that you can install with a single click. This kind of search also turns up control panels and files. If you have a long list of programs, you can search by typing a letter in Pokki’s search box. Pokki is a slickly designed Start menu option for Windows 8 users that offers a robust notification system, but the app pushes its own app store too hard. And it’s fair to say that all of these programs do a better job than Microsoft itself of making Windows 8.1 easier to use.
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But Start Menu Reviver impressed me: It feels more like a Windows 8 program, and it provides a lot of flexibility. You can also easily move, resize, or delete existing tiles, making this new style menu very easy to customize.įor anyone looking simply to replicate the Windows 7 Start menu, Start Menu 8 is the simplest and most flexible option. You can create a tile for any installed program by dragging and dropping its icon onto the menu itself.
#Pokki start menu software
Such software as Classic Shell, Pokkis Windows 8 Start. The most interesting feature in Start Menu Reviver is the ability to create and tweak tiles. You can recapture the goodness of the traditional Windows 7 Start menu through a Start menu program. It doesn’t take over the desktop-the Microsoft Start page is still accessible as one of the tiles. Start Menu Reviver, as the name suggests, also brings back the Start menu, but it dispenses with the past and instead adopts a look that’s in line with the Modern design style of Windows 8 itself. Start Menu Reviver’s unique Start menu owes more to Windows 8 than Windows 7. These make it a little more useful for those who want to bridge the gap between the two versions.
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It lacks some of the design polish of Start8, but its nice extra touches include the ‘Switch to Metro’ button that takes you to the Microsoft Start page, and the MetroApps option, which provides direct access to apps that use only the Windows 8 Metro interface. Start Menu 8 performs similarly to Start8, producing a decent reproduction of the Windows 7 Start menu. You can customize the Start-menu button in Start Menu 8’s clean interface.
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