{"id":7609,"date":"2014-05-19T09:10:41","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T13:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=7609"},"modified":"2014-05-19T09:10:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T13:10:41","slug":"another-windows-8-start-menu-you-might-want-to-check-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/another-windows-8-start-menu-you-might-want-to-check-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Windows 8 Start Menu You Might Want to Check Out"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spencer brings an XP-style Start menu to Windows 8<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\"spencer\"<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re still missing the Start Menu in Windows 8 — or even the more desktop-friendly 8.1 — then there are\u00a0plenty of ways<\/a>\u00a0to bring it back (Classic Shell<\/a>\u00a0is probably our favorite).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not immediately obvious why we need yet another Start Menu alternative, then. But\u00a0Spencer<\/a>(yes, that really is its name) does have one or two differences which help it stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n

The program is extremely lightweight, for instance, at a mere 430KB download. It\u2019s also portable, so there are no adware concerns here.<\/p>\n

Spencer isn\u2019t a Start menu replacement, either. It won\u2019t replace your existing Start button, or interfere with the Windows button. Instead you just pin it to your taskbar (right-click, “Pin to taskbar”) and click the shortcut whenever you need to use it.<\/p>\n

Being launched from a shortcut means you\u2019re automatically able to give the menu a custom hotkey. Right-click the pinned shortcut, right-click Spencer, select Properties, click in the Shortcut box and press Ctrl+Alt+S (for example). You can then launch the menu with that hotkey as required.<\/p>\n

The menu appears in the XP style: a single vertical list of your programs. Below that you\u2019ll find entries to organise your files and folders, open Control Panel, launch a Command Line with admin rights, or open the Run box.<\/p>\n

The key here is what you think of the XP menu style. We\u2019re not fans, because its single vertical list makes poor use of screen space, especially when you\u2019ve lots of applications installed. You can spend a lot of time scrolling to find what you need, all via the keyboard (the mouse scroll wheel doesn\u2019t work) and there\u2019s not even a search box to help out.<\/p>\n

Still, if you like the XP style — and you don\u2019t have too many programs installed — then Spencer provides a quick and easy way to bring it back. We would still pick\u00a0Classic Shell<\/a>\u00a0for its configurability, but if you need something very simple which won\u2019t conflict with other Start menus or buttons then\u00a0Spencer<\/a>\u00a0might be enough.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SOURCE: BETANEWS<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spencer brings an XP-style Start menu to Windows 8 If you\u2019re still missing the Start Menu in Windows 8 — or even the more desktop-friendly 8.1 — then there are\u00a0plenty of ways\u00a0to bring it back (Classic Shell\u00a0is probably our favorite). It\u2019s not immediately obvious why we need yet another Start Menu alternative, then. But\u00a0Spencer(yes, that really is its\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1426],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7609"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7612,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7609\/revisions\/7612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}