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Comment by thomasz | Hacker News Reader

That is just nostalgia. There is something to be said about the icon design, but you really wouldn’t want the II of that era back. Nowadays you start an application by clicking a fixed location in the task bar or by pressing the windows key and typing the first two or three letters. Back than, you had to navigate a ridiculous start menu tree. Windows didn’t snap to the borders, task bar entries would move around. There was no search beyond the file system, so you either needed a ton of luck, a ton of time or a superhuman memory to change some obscure settings.

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> navigate a ridiculous start menu tree

That's not true, the start menu tree was usually relatively clutter-free until the XP era, where companies went absolutely insane and started putting things like manuals and links to the website inside of the start menu tree... yuck!

Press <Windows>+R, "calc" <Return>. Easy and fast, if you can remember the exact names of the executables.

Also, back then Windows came not only with printed manuals, but also with an actually useful help system and not one that just makes a Bing search.

Yes, regular user, just do:

<Windows>+R, then write "calc", press <Return> and you'll be ready to use the calculator. Very intuitive.

Almost like you need a CLI as the OS that simply launches the visual UI program for specific tasks.

A pretty desktop background and a prompt would go a long way.

I'm now picturing something like ChatGPT (or a specifically trained model) integrated into the shell, so a user can simply type / vocalise what they are trying to do, without knowing specific app details, rather than having to navigate a bloated UI.

Clicking a single item it's faster than typing.

The modern-day equivalent is yes, regular user, just do <Windows>, then write "calc", press <Return>, and you'll be ready to use the calculator. That R really killed it...

To be fair, you have to remember that the calculator is called "calc.exe" to use this method. However, when parent said "you really wouldn’t want the II of that era back" I understood "you" as "HN reader", not as "regular user".

Also, there is also a "discoverable" way to launch programs keyboard-only: <Windows>, P, A, C (Programs - Accessories - Calculator).

I just really dislike the Windows 10 start menu search. It slows down on random occasions just often enough to be too annoying for me to use, at least on my machine.

I dislike it because the autocompletions are hilariously brain-dead most of the time. Like, it usually autocompletes folder names correctly, but I can't really rely on that feature because some of them are never offered as candidates. E.g. "Work" is not only not offered as candidate (even though I have a folder named "Work"), but mysteriously autocompleted to "Word".

It's also a solution to a self-inflicted problem. Super-crowded Start menus were a problem, but not a very widespread one among people who aren't nerds. The Windows 11 Start menu is crowded but largely because it's littered with Microsoft's own apps. If I were to take out Xbox, Alarms & Clocks and all the other crap I no longer bother to uninstall because it's gonna come back on the next update anyway, I could probably use it quite comfortably.

No, it's not. For tech people, yes. For regular folks, most don't even know you can write after pressing the Windows key. Moreso, not everyone even knows the Windows key opens the menu. Folks don't use shortcuts like we do.

The thing is, you can apply the modern UI features to the older desktop and design paradigms. Linux desktop environments do it to varying degrees, and the result is often very good. I like both of these things (the traditional desktop, and the modern features), and KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon all handle it pretty well.

Yes, everyone in the world starts applications by pressing the windows key and typing. Yes, that view isn't skewed at all.

> Nowadays you start an application by clicking a fixed location in the task bar or by pressing the windows key and typing the first two or three letters

This works on 1% of the cases because MS decided that you want to search the internet.

> Nowadays you start an application by clicking a fixed location in the task bar or by pressing the windows key and typing the first two or three letters. Back than, you had to navigate a ridiculous start menu tree.

Not me, I installed 3rd party application launchers on older versions of Windows. Those were nice and lightweight without the slowdowns of what Microsoft inflicted on everyone.

> Nowadays you start an application by clicking a fixed location in the task bar or by pressing the windows key and typing the first two or three letters

Big lolz.

Typing to start apps is one of those things that separate the general population from nerds.

Nowadays "you", as in "the general population", start an app from a visual shortcut on your desktop, taskbar, or start menu. Same as before.

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