How to use the Start Menu

How to use the Start Menu

As you use a Windows PC you'll notice a button along the botton at the left that says Start. This is one of the nicer features of Windows. You use this menu to open program and do some other stuff.

Activity 1: Opening an Application Program

This method works about 90% of the time. After this explanation I'll outline a different method to opening programs.

1) Click on the Start button (almost always in the lower left of the screen). This will generate a Pop Up menu.

2) Move the pointer over the Programs menu item on the Start Menu. This will generate a cascading or secondary menu of more choices. (Menu items that have a cascading menu always have little triangles next to them.

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Sidebar: The Program Menus:

There is great variance with the items that will appear within the program menu. In general, every program that gets installed on your computer (by you or whomever) creates an entry in the Programs sub-menu. Since different software programs get installed on different computers, you may see different stuff on different Program menus.

Be aware that some of the installers may use the name of the company rather than the name of the software program(s) themselves. You'll just need to become familiar with all this....

As example: you may find something called "Corell Suite" in your Programs menu that contains "WordPerfect for Windows" since Corell makes WordPerfect.... If you're not sure, explore!

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3) Find the item you want to launch / open / run and highlight it. Click and you will open that item. In the case pictured below, I've clicked on Start > Programs > Accessories and selected WordPad within the Accessories sub-menu. Please do this in order to launch the WordPad program. (It comes on all Windows computers.)

Below, I show what the WordPad program looks like when it's open. (Note that in this view it's set up to share its application window with other programs and the desktop -- the arrangement of your windows and desktop may vary. Click here to open a new browser window about how to arrange window in the Windows system.)

 

Alternative way to open a program

If you have a program on your computer do not find it (or any likely named item) in your programs menu don't give up hope! Take these steps and you may be able to find it yet.

Open the My Computer icon

Open the Hard Drive (usually the C drive)

Within the C drive, open the folder named Program Files.

Most of the programs installed on your computer end up either here or within the C drive itself. Note that folders containing programs installed on your computer may have the name of the company that made the software rather than the name of the program.

That's all there is to it!

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