Best Free Start Menu Replacement

 
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Introduction
Don't let the name of this program put you off; it works on all the most popular versions of Windows.
Discussion

Vista Start Menu is an alternative to the plain Start menu you find in XP and Vista. It loads instantly, and is highly customizable. The enhancements are most obvious on Vista. Instead of presenting a "search-based" interface or "All Programs",  it  effectively provides a hierarchical menu of  Program folders together with some other features. It's very customizable. It doesn't change any system settings, so it's perfectly safe to install, try for a few days, and then remove if you don't like it. On one test system, Vista's Search (Start button) failed to find all installed programs, but Vista Start Menu listed them all.

The picture and other graphics on the developer's website will help you  to more-or-less instantly decide if you might want to use it.

Vista Start Menu

Quick Selection Guide

Vista Start Menu    Rating 9 of 10  Gizmo's Top Pick

Pros   loads instantly, highly customizable
Cons   may overwhelm with information, takes some time to get used to
Developer Home Page   http://www.vistastartmenu.com/index.html
Download link   http://www.vistastartmenu.com/index.html
File Size  

2.25 MB   Version 3.02   License Type Freeware   Installation Requirements Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista

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3.333335
Average: 3.3 (3 votes)
Your rating: None

I prefer zune theme instead of this vista start menu. Firstly, it looks great and does not consume any system resources. Vista start menu consumes too much system resources.

The free Vista Start Menu is a feature-restricted version of the fully-featured Pro version (USD $20). IMHO that's not "unrestricted freeware".

Agreed, & changed.

This articles is actually very good it will be usefull thanks.

What's the difference between Tidy Start Menu, Vista Start Menu, and SMOz?

Have used VistaStartMenu for about a year. Pretty, easy to size the text, BUT I finally gave up on it. One of the things I use often is the Recent Files list to quickly bring up what I have been working on lately, but in VistaStartMenu it does not list the Recent Files by last used date, it just lists LOTs of files alphabetically and highlights recently used ones, so if you don't recall the name then it's tough to find. :-(

Having just installed and run Vista Start Menu, I have to say it's a complete classic. Highly recommended by me at least.

ViStart is the best ever for looks and usability, "vistastartmenu" doesn't look like vista at all and it has clunky interface.

At any rate, I think this article did not do justice to all start menu alternatives.

ViStart looks great but the current version has been causing havoc on Explorer causing various crashes and system freezes. Their forum is full of posts of people having these problems.

As far as I know (which isn't much, of course) "ViStart" effectively provides a Vista-like start menu for XP. "Vista Start Menu" (under Vista) simply provides an alternative for those who don't like the one that comes out-of-the-box. If you want alternative Start menus reviewed, try listing some. Even better, become a Category Editor and take over this article.

You can also just change your Windows Vista Start menu to classic style which is similar to previous versions of Windows. I found this detailed article with a video tutorial included. Change the Vista start menu to classic view Mind you it is very easy to change the menu anyway..

Give it a try. It just makes the Windows Vista start menu easier to use.

wan't a vista menu in XP use "vistart" plus if you want the ORB use "viORB"
freeware ROCKS. you can find it in http://lee-soft.com/ "lee you owe me, hehehe just a joke!!!"

www.ak0n.tk

You have a point, I guess that really is what it does, although I am using as a start menu replacement as I rarely use the start menu anymore. Vista Start Menu is nice too now - that I've been playing with it I will probably use both.

The Start menu replacement I've been using is called Guillotine (freeware of course). Very quick to use if you want to launch programs and documents by quickly typing a few letters. Small footprint and easy to setup. Highly recommended, especially if you are still using Windows XP.

http://www.zchromosome.com/

nice launcher though :)

I think your suggestion is more suited to the "Best Free Program Launcher" (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-program-launcher.htm).

If that's the case, may I suggest KeyLink?

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