Trying to make the Win10 start menu work - can it do more than 5 groups?

Trying to make the Win10 start menu work - can it do more than 5 groups?

While the classic Start Menu works fine, I'm trying to get the default
Windows 10 start menu to work in the real world, where I have about a dozen
categories I've used for decades for software.

I organize my software by longstanding categories such as archivers,
browsers, cleaners, database programs, editors, finance programs, games,
hardware, etc.

The problem is I can't seem to get more than 5 groups in the Windows start
menu. I searched, but all the articles found to date are how to add a
group, but only up until 5.

Am I bashing my head against a brick wall in attempting to make the Windows
10 default start menu work in the real world?

Is there a trick to get it to have a dozen groups?

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:10:47 +0000 (UTC), Ragnusen Ultred wrote:

Trying to make the Win10 start menu work - can it do more than 5 groups?

While the classic Start Menu works fine, I'm trying to get the default
Windows 10 start menu to work in the real world, where I have about a dozen
categories I've used for decades for software.

I organize my software by longstanding categories such as archivers,
browsers, cleaners, database programs, editors, finance programs, games,
hardware, etc.

The problem is I can't seem to get more than 5 groups in the Windows start
menu. I searched, but all the articles found to date are how to add a
group, but only up until 5.

Am I bashing my head against a brick wall in attempting to make the Windows
10 default start menu work in the real world?

Is there a trick to get it to have a dozen groups?


I have 9 groups of tiles, organized in 2 columns of groups where each
column of groups is 3 "medium" tiles wide.

To get 2 columns of groups, I just grabbed the right-hand edge of the
start menu and dragged it to the right until it was wide enough.

I do not recall any special trick to get 9 groups; I just did it.
To create another group, drag a tile and hold it between two groups
(one group above, the other below) until a bigger gap opens up between
the groups and a coloured horizontal bar appears in the gap. Then
drop the tile onto that coloured horizontal bar which will become
another group.


I presume you are asking about the right-hand side of the Start menu,
where the tiles are.


--
Kind regards
Ralph

On 17/03/2018 01:10:47, Ragnusen Ultred wrote:
Trying to make the Win10 start menu work - can it do more than 5 groups?

While the classic Start Menu works fine, I'm trying to get the default
Windows 10 start menu to work in the real world, where I have about a dozen
categories I've used for decades for software.

I organize my software by longstanding categories such as archivers,
browsers, cleaners, database programs, editors, finance programs, games,
hardware, etc.

The problem is I can't seem to get more than 5 groups in the Windows start
menu. I searched, but all the articles found to date are how to add a
group, but only up until 5.

Am I bashing my head against a brick wall in attempting to make the Windows
10 default start menu work in the real world?

Is there a trick to get it to have a dozen groups?

Make the tiles smaller, right click on a tile.
OR
Make the start menu full screen size, Settings/Personalisation

--
mick

mick wrote:

Ragnusen Ultred wrote:

Is there a trick to get it to have a dozen groups?

Make the tiles smaller, right click on a tile.
OR
Make the start menu full screen size, Settings/Personalisation

OR
drag the corner of the start menu to make it taller/wider
OR
tick the "show more tiles on start" setting

On Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:10:47 +0000 (UTC), Ragnusen Ultred
wrote:

Trying to make the Win10 start menu work - can it do more than 5 groups?

While the classic Start Menu works fine, I'm trying to get the default
Windows 10 start menu to work in the real world, where I have about a dozen
categories I've used for decades for software.

I organize my software by longstanding categories such as archivers,
browsers, cleaners, database programs, editors, finance programs, games,
hardware, etc.

The problem is I can't seem to get more than 5 groups in the Windows start
menu. I searched, but all the articles found to date are how to add a
group, but only up until 5.

Am I bashing my head against a brick wall in attempting to make the Windows
10 default start menu work in the real world?

Is there a trick to get it to have a dozen groups?

Mine works intermittently. There may be something wrong because I get
side-panel messages to check my SSD (which disk?) for errors but when
I run chkdsk all is well.
I'm waiting for that upgrade to fix things.

Ralph Fox wrote:

To create another group, drag a tile and hold it between two groups
(one group above, the other below) until a bigger gap opens up between
the groups and a coloured horizontal bar appears in the gap. Then
drop the tile onto that coloured horizontal bar which will become
another group.

That was it!

Auuuurgggghhhh! It's so simple ... once you know the trick!
(And once you try it a few times because it's flaky as hell.)

1. This is the setup (unorganized at the moment since I'm trying to get the
dozen hierarchical groups done first so only count the number of groups,
which is five).
http://i.cubeupload.com/CRXVI1.jpg

2. It's flaky as hell, so it doesn't work every time, but if you keep at
it, about one out of every five attempts is successful in creating a new
group over and above the default of five groups.
http://i.cubeupload.com/fhHI1J.jpg

My plan is to replace the old tried and true hierarchical cascaded menus
with this new untested Windows 10 tiled start menu setup where I just want
to be able to find all my programs where I put them.

For example,
Start archiver {winzip, winrar, 7zip, recuva, jsware, etc.}
Start browser chrome-based {opera, epic, iron, etc.}
Start browser mozilla-based {firefox, dragon, palemoon, tbb, etc.)
Start browser proprietary {ie, edge, etc.}
etc.

While there was never anything wrong with creating your own cascaded menu
/outside/ of the constantly polluted Start programs default menu, Windows
10 just doesn't support cascaded menus anymore (who knows why).

So I'm simply trying to reproduce what /everyone/ would want, which is a
logical hierarchical menu system using the Windows 10 tiled menu mechanism.

Wish me luck and thanks for helping me create that new sixth group!

Peter Jason wrote:

Mine works intermittently.

You're not kidding!

It's as capricious as all hell to try to create a dozen groups!

The best I can do, so far, after thirty or forty attempts is seven!
http://i.cubeupload.com/9nIoNy.jpg

There may be something wrong because I get
side-panel messages to check my SSD (which disk?) for errors but when
I run chkdsk all is well.
I'm waiting for that upgrade to fix things.

My disks are fine.
It's Windows that is flaky as hell.

There must be a /reproducible/ method for creating new groups.
It's just crazy the method I'm using, which was kindly suggested by Ralph
Fox earlier in this thread - but the mechanism is so flaky that out of
thirty or forty attempts, I'm only up to 7 groups.

Obviously, there's a trick I'm missing because only a sadistic developer
would have designed a system this capricious on purpose.

In article , Andy Burns wrote:

OR
drag the corner of the start menu to make it taller/wider
OR
tick the "show more tiles on start" setting

I don't think there is a 'setting' for "more groups" but if there was such
as setting, I would have hit it loooooooooong ago!
http://i.cubeupload.com/J1Pm4i.jpg

I don't care (yet) about the "size" of the start menu nor of the individual
tiles ... what I care about is to have about a dozen meaninful hierarchical
groups, e.g.,
archivers
browsers
cleaners
databases
editors
finance
games
hardware
etc.

We've always had this capability since the Start Menu was created, where
it's only in the tiled menus that it's not intuitive how to create a dozen
or so groups of your own choosing.

To date, I've been able to create 7 groups, after about thirty or forty
attempts, so I admit the process is the most flaky I've seen on Windows to
date.

I just keep trying and trying and trying and trying, and out of all those
attempts, I now have 7 of the roughly dozen groups that I want.
http://i.cubeupload.com/9nIoNy.jpg

mick wrote:

Make the tiles smaller, right click on a tile.
OR
Make the start menu full screen size, Settings/Personalisation

That was all done long ago, where the goal is to have about a dozen
hierarchichal "groups".
http://i.cubeupload.com/J1Pm4i.jpg

The "size" of those groups is meaningless (I think).

What matters are the groups.

Start archivers (bunch of archivers)
Start browsers chrome-based (bunch of chrome-based browsers)
Start browsers mozilla-based (bunch of mozilla-based browsers)
Start browsers proprietary (bunch of Windows browsers0
Start cleaners (bunch of cleaners)
Start databases (bunch of database programs)
Start editors text (bunch of text editors)
Start editors picture (bunch of picture editors)
Start editors video (bunch of video editors)
etc.

Of course, we had this functionality in spaces with the Windows cascaded
start menu, but I'm trying to learn to live within the confines of Windows
10 where all I'm trying to do is what everyone would want to do, which is
to have a menu hierarchy of my choosing with the Windows tiled start menu.
http://i.cubeupload.com/9nIoNy.jpg

In article news
So I'm simply trying to reproduce what /everyone/ would want, which is a
logical hierarchical menu system using the Windows 10 tiled menu mechanism.

Ok. I finally found the trick, I think, and, it was devilishly simple, in
the end. Sheeesh.

I still haven't found a single screenshot on the net showing anyone with a
well-organized hierarchy of more than 5 groups (what decent hierarchy only
has five groups for heaven's sake?) but I did find out the trick from this
Toms Hardware Guide which says to create a new group, all you need to do is
"drag and drop a tile into an empty space on the Start Menu".
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3...t-windows.html

So now I'm up to the dozen groups that I want, and now I just need to
organize them so that they're hierarchical.
http://i.cubeupload.com/MpGI2l.jpg

NOTE: AFAIK, that's the only screenshot on the entire Internet showing a
realistic tiled Win10 start menu, because it has more than 5 groups.

Ragnusen Ultred wrote:

Is there a trick to get it to have a dozen groups?

What's just sadistically crazy is that the descriptions for creating new
groups seem devilishly simple, such as this one:
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/cre...10-start-menu/

But notice they don't have more than 5 groups, and notice the best I can do
(so far) is 7 groups. It's just sick. If you haven't tried to create a
dozen groups yourself, you won't know what I'm experiencing.

What's crazy is that everyone would want to do what I'm doing, which is
simply to replace the cascaded menu hierarchy with the tiled menu
hierarchy.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-602733769162

And yet, I'll bet you will be hard pressed to find a single screenshot of a
Windows 10 tiled menu with a realistic set of more than 5 groups.

http://www.simplehow.tips/a/27/11-wa...s10-start-menu
http://www.constellationsolutions.co...-groups-wider/
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/group-...-10-start-menu

Uultred ragnusen wrote:

And yet, I'll bet you will be hard pressed to find a single screenshot of a
Windows 10 tiled menu with a realistic set of more than 5 groups.

OK. With your help, I figured it out, where the "trick" did turn out to be
devilishly simple, in the end!
http://i.cubeupload.com/MpGI2l.jpg

So now I'm working on making some of the groups hierarchical.

Ragnusen Ultred wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

tick the "show more tiles on start" setting

I don't think there is a 'setting' for "more groups" but if there was such
as setting, I would have hit it loooooooooong ago!

right click empty space in task bar, taskbar settings, start, show more
tiles on start

i.e. not more groups, just more tiles, but giving you more area for your
groups to fit into.

Uultred ragnusen wrote:

So now I'm working on making some of the groups hierarchical.

Wow. I just accidentally ran across this, which allows us to re-create the
well-honed cascaded hierarchical Windows start menu of the days of old
(which worked just fine as long as you stayed away from the polluted
"programs" hierarchy).
https://superuser.com/questions/9845...ll-the-folders

With this, I am able to re-create a cascaded hierarchical start menu!
http://i.cubeupload.com/6WPuYD.jpg

Start my menu editors pic {irfanview, paint, paint.net, pinta, etc.}
http://i.cubeupload.com/cB1OU0.jpg

Now all I need to do is organize that cascaded menu, and then reproduce it
in the Windows 10 default tiled grouped menu.

Andy Burns wrote:

right click empty space in task bar, taskbar settings, start, show more
tiles on start

i.e. not more groups, just more tiles, but giving you more area for your
groups to fit into.

Thanks Andy for that suggestion of "showing more tiles".
http://i.cubeupload.com/FJ6YKE.jpg

I don't think that button does /anything/ useful, as it was set long ago to
show more tiles and the problem of having only five default "groups"
remained.

In fact, even now with a dozen groups, I clicked the "show more tiles"
setting on and off and back on again, and each time, the start menu looked
exactly the same.

So, I'm not sure /what/ that "show-more-tiles" setting actually
accomplishes, but it has always been set to "show more tiles", which is my
fault for not making that clear from the start.