Switch quickly between Windows 10 Start Menu and Start Screen

If you are running Windows 10 you may have noticed that you can either display the start menu or the start screen, but not both.

The start menu is the default option on desktop systems that are controlled with a mouse and keyboard. While that is the preferred option for most users, some may want to access the start screen at times.

I write a weekly best of Windows apps over at Betanews for instance and one of the issues that I ran into using the start menu was that new apps were not highlighted anymore.

This meant lots of searching for these apps in the start menu or finding a way to switch to the start screen to access them there right away.

You can switch between start menu and start screen in the following way:

1. Right-click on the taskbar and select properties from the context menu.
2. Switch to start menu in the properties window that opens up.
3. Check or uncheck "use the start menu instead of the start screen".
4. If checked, the start menu is displayed, if unchecked, the start screen is used.
5. Log out and on again.

This is not really that comfortable, especially the requirement to log out and on again before the changes that you have made are visible.

A Registry switch is used to determine what to display. The key EnableStartMenu under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced is used for that.

• Set to 1, Windows will display the start menu only on the system.
• Set to 0, Windows will display the start screen instead

A user on TenForums has created a script that you can use to quickly toggle between the Start Menu and Start Screen on Windows 10.

This means that you don't have to use the taskbar or the Registry to make the switch, and also don't log out of the system before the change becomes active.

Double-clicking the script on the system will change the Registry value and restart the explorer.exe process so that the changes are applied.

This means that you don't have to log off and on again before that is the case.