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Vista-esque Start Menu

While searching for some Freeware at SnapFiles, I came across this utility called VistaStartMenu. And as the name suggests, it transforms the ordinary start menu of Non-Vista PC’s into a Vista-esque menu. Since it was a freeware, I had no qualms downloading it and installing it…but only to be disappointed!

The menu layout is such that the Logoff, Shutdown, Switch User, Standby, Hibernate etc buttons at the top with the List of programs being displayed rather ungainly across the middle. The bottom -part contains a text-box which got me stumped for a while….but it later dawned when I read the buttons n’ text beside it. It said ‘Enter’ for Run; ‘Ctrl+Enter’ for Google Search and ‘Alt+Enter’ for Search. So what one has to do is to type out the text in the command and if it is a Run-command then press Enter, to invoke a Google search – press Ctrl+Enter and for a PC-based search all one has to do is to press Alt+Enter! Nifty if not cumbersome.

I would have been much more pleased if the Navigation was hover-based and horizontally-scrolling. Somewhat on the lines of the ‘Categories’ menu that DeviantArt has. It displays the categories in a single window and when we click on a category, the items sroll away to the left displaying the sub-categories and so on. Try it out at Deviantart and you’ll know what I mean. It Looks like this:

Now if some emerging designer would implement it in a cool n nifty StartMenu and distribute it as Freeware! WierdStartMenu it might be called