Thursday, June 21, 2012

How do I find the Start menu in Windows Server 2012?

After first installing Windows Server 2012, like most Windows Users, I was completely lost in trying to find the well known Start menu.

Fortunately, after watching a WebCast on Windows Server 2012, I was able to see how to find the Start menu on this brand new OS.  There are 3 ways to accomplish this:

  1. You can point your arrow at the very top right hand corner of the OS to get the Start menu to appear
  2. You can point your arrow at the very bottom left hand corner of the screen (where the Start menu used to be) to get the Start menu to pop up.
  3. If you are using a Windows based keyboard, you can simply press the Windows key on your keyboard.




The thing that I dislike most about this overall experience is that it requires an EXTREMELY high degree of mouse precision.  The menu does not appear as soon as you are in the general vicinity, but rather requires a great amount of EXACTNESS.  Therefore, in many cases, I had to fail at numerous attempts before I was able to get it to successfully appear.  In addition, if a portion of that screen is cut off and not visible in your current view, you also will not be able to access it.
To me, that just seems like too much wasted effort.  Even though most of the functionality you can want is in the new Server Manager, it certainly does not include ALL of the required functionality (including getting to Internet Explorer). 


You can even click on the Windows Key + X to get another menu to appear with another common set of operations. 



However, to me, wasted effort is wasted time.  So while Microsoft may have made Server Manager much better than it was in previous releases, they have added additional effort to perform any tasks that I need to accomplish OUTSIDE of Server Manager.  In my opinion, it is just better to bring back the old way of getting to the Start menu.  By and large Server Administrators will continue to manage their servers from desktops and laptops and touch screens are probably a secondary or very minor concern for most enterprise organizations.
Just my 2 cents....

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