Windows 8 Start menu and shutdown button trick

By alexappleton
in Microsoft (Windows)

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alexappleton

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Growing frustratingly tired of trying to click the start button in the bottom left corner with multiple monitors and RDP sessions in full screen I decided to do something about it. Figured the easiest way was to create a simple executable that simply sends keys (ctrl+esc) and pin it to the taskbar. I gave it the new fancy logo as the icon and it seems to work well. Following the same idea, I did the same thing to call the legacy shutdown box and pinned this to my start menu in metro. This is solving my two biggest annoyances with using the metro UI on the desktop so I thought I'd share.

See more here including the download links for the two executables: http://bit.ly/PJvsOR

  • benthebear and +InsaneNutter
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alexappleton

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Yeah, I don't like the shutdown icon either, but I'll sort it out later. Looking for a metro style icon, but when I make it transparent it doesn't look that great. Thanks for the feedback.

Also, I know some of you are thinking why can't I just hit the win key button for the start menu. Well I deal with a lot of servers, and sometimes I have to use keyboards directly attached to them. Most of the time these keyboards are whatever is lying around at the customers site that typically don't have a win key, or I am dealing with a pull out KVM tray which 9 times out of 10 doesn't have the win key.

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Grand Master

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Very nice, thanks a lot, and yeah I'm not liking the Shutdown icon either lol, the Start Screen icon is nice though, how about using the Shutdown icon from the Metro Icon pack from: http://dakirby309.de...Icons-280724102 you could try asking the author for permission.

Also I would love it if there was a way to push the Start Screen icon to the very left corner of the superbar, is there a way to do this?

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alexappleton

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Very nice, thanks a lot, and yeah I'm not liking the Shutdown icon either lol, the Start Screen icon is nice though, how about using the Shutdown icon from the Metro Icon pack from: http://dakirby309.de...Icons-280724102 you could try asking the author for permission.

Thanks for the tip! Yeah, I'm not very good at the graphic design stuff so I'll contact this guy and see if he doesn't mind me using his icon.

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StanP

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Very nice, thanks a lot, and yeah I'm not liking the Shutdown icon either lol, the Start Screen icon is nice though, how about using the Shutdown icon from the Metro Icon pack from: http://dakirby309.de...Icons-280724102 you could try asking the author for permission.

Also I would love it if there was a way to push the Start Screen icon to the very left corner of the superbar, is there a way to do this?

The only way I have found would be to use the Quick Launch Toolbar and then place a shortcut for the Start app in the QL folder, same as I did with the Shutdown app.

post-4634-0-86609400-1346094594.jpg

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Grand Master

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The only way I have found would be to use the Quick Launch Toolbar and then place a shortcut for the Start app in the QL folder, same as I did with the Shutdown app.

Very nice setup there, looking good :) How exactly do you go about adding the Quick Launch toolbar? I no longer see an option to enable that?

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Grand Master

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Here you go....it's pretty easy and better than the default bar icons, mainly because you can add and remove what you want when you want, by just drag and drop.

http://www.eightforu...-8-a.html?ltr=Q

Thanks StanP, it's a good method, but then the icons on taskbar look a little above the bottom edge of the screen like in your screenshot :), I didn't notice this before untill I tried this myself hehe, the only way to put them back where they are supposed to be is by choosing "Small Icons" on the Quick Launch bar options, but then again the Start icon looks weird being so small lol, I wonder if there's a way to fix this.

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StanP

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Well here's my setup...it's clean, accessible, and fast. May not be for everyone...but I like it. Now if I could only get rid of the crappy shortcut overlays, I's be a happy man.

post-4634-0-73202200-1346099343_thumb.jp

post-4634-0-58093400-1346099350_thumb.jp

post-4634-0-61771000-1346099357_thumb.jp

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alexappleton

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Still no "Lock" selection though, but it does look better.

Thanks...appreciate it.

Yes, I am only calling the built-in shutdown option via javascript:(new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application")).ShutdownWindows();

Very basic stuff. That dialog box you see is built by Microsoft. Suppose one could do another shortcut by sending winkey+L

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StanP

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If that works for you that would be great...if not...no problem, I use the lock feature on my servers far more than sign out, same with my laptops when I'm away from my station. Allows all my active processes to stay running. But I understand your view, no sense reinventing the wheel.

Thanks for all the work you did on the apps...it's appreciated.

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carlm745

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For those who still want the start orb and the windows 7 start menu for windows 8 can get it back by downloading an addin from Lee-Soft.com called "ViStart" downaload and install and it brings back the orb and win 7 start menu and it works on the RTM version of windows 8. Reboot the machine, once win 8 comes up select the desktop from the start screen and there you will have your win7 desktop back including the orb button and it all works.

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Grand Master

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For those who still want the start orb and the windows 7 start menu for windows 8 can get it back by downloading an addin from Lee-Soft.com called "ViStart" downaload and install and it brings back the orb and win 7 start menu and it works on the RTM version of windows 8. Reboot the machine, once win 8 comes up select the desktop from the start screen and there you will have your win7 desktop back including the orb button and it all works.

Most people who download these apps do not want the Windows 7 Start Menu, these little apps just add functionality to bring up the start screen by just clicking on an icon like it used to be and for quick access to Shutdown, Sleep and Reboot options etc, I don't want my Windows 8 to look like Windows 7 :) but thanks for the suggestion.

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alexappleton

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Most people who download these apps do not want the Windows 7 Start Menu, these little apps just add functionality to bring up the start screen by just clicking on an icon like it used to be and for quick access to Shutdown, Sleep and Reboot options etc, I don't want my Windows 8 to look like Windows 7 :) but thanks for the suggestion.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I like the new metro ui, but there are some obvious design flaws with the desktop experience that I am sure will be fixed by SP1. Until then, I need to try have Windows as useful as possible, so this is why I offered these quick tips.

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