I Worked on the Windows Start Menu!
How does the Start Menu paint? Find out in this insider tale of the Windows Start Menu. For my book on the spectrum, see: https://amzn.to/3XLJ8kY
As noted in the video, the Start Menu was a Windows95 feature before being ported to what is “Windows” today; Dave was responsible for making it operate and paint under Windows NT/XP/2000 and later.
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It is sad that even until this day explorer freezes when accessing non-existent share, such as when you disconnect from a VPN.
By drawing the text sideways as you did, would it let cleartype to correctly apply the subpixel antialiasing/hinting?
That design was awful
I miss the old start menu. Back when you could find things…. without having to use search
Best Start menu was in 98/2000/ME
Why does the GUI just keep getting wose?
OK, so I was in middle school in the early 90s in Seattle and my 'computer' teacher told us an anecdote that previous to 'Start', the start menu was 'Begin'. But that in focus groups or whatnot, there had been some concern that people might be confused about the coincidence that the Prime Minister of Israel was named Begin. Start was less ambiguous so they switched from Begin to Start. I can not seem to find any evidence of that story online, and now I don't know if it was gossip or my teacher made it up or what. Have you ever heard that or is it at all familiar as someone who was around? I have a friend who thinks I'm full of crap and no way to prove myself Lol. Enjoyed your content.
I definitely ran through that code path of entering a server share and having it later pop up that it wasn’t available. If I recall you could get a few going at once and get hit with the errors later on. I really liked windows NT4 when it came out and used it for many years.
Imma gonna make that "ding" my new default Windows error sound.
Love love love the looks backs 🙂
Be honest.. how much inspiration did you guys get from Apple / System 7.5?
Best start menu ever. The new shit is terrible
I've used Windows 10 and Explorer still hangs for 90 seconds when you try to access a server that isn't on a network.
Dave, cool video. Brings back memories. I seem to remember some situation when accessing shares (using NT) where I had users exceeding an access count as described, and getting locked out. Of course, as the ever-friendly sysadmin, I had to try to unravel the problem. IIRC, it actually turned out to be some sort of sys tax error causing an edge case in our software. You know, the usual stuff that caused all of us to lose our hair at an early age. 🤣
Love your vids, keep it up!
Pete
Odd, could you not simply render text to a bitmap and then rotate the bitmap instead of presumably rendering it with GDI every frame? Though perhaps GDI only redraws when painting is required ala dirty rectangles so this wasn't a problem
And look at what they've done with your project now. It's a bloated mess 🙁
My respects to you, Dave. I love how easy was to organize the menu with your own folders, and remove the garbage installed in the Applications menu. Now, the menu is so useless that I do not use it, and instead I keep my links organized inside a folder in the Desktop. I really miss the old days.
My respect to you, Dave. That was the best menu ever created. I was able to organize everything easily, and remove all the garbage installed in the Applications menu. Was able to find any program quickly. Now, the Start menu is so useless that I do not use it. I have my own links organized inside a folder in the Desktop. I really miss the old days.
ROFLMAO I love your term "whack whack" for the "\" symbols. Thank you, I will use whackwhack to denote backslash and chop/chop to denote "//" from here on!
The last part reminds me of a windows 10 glitch where cached credentials can auto lock an account that had a new pw set on it. Have to go in and clean out credentials, disconnect all shares, Lock Screen and log in with new pw again to fix it.
🤣😂🤣You have a great sense of humor, Thanks
I always wanted to make my own start menu back in the 95 days. Well that was a dream, I couldn't code if my life depended on it. That is why I stuck with hardware for servers and desktops.
Dave – You're cool as hell. I'm not sure how the algo brought me to ya but I am sure glad it did.
so u are one of the a-holes who decided 8 or 10 point was big enough for the internet.
Well i am here to tell u it is not. u and ur co defendants need to go back to work and change it to at least 14 point.
I have 20/25 vision and still if I set 6 ft from my 56" screen i cant read what is on there without blowing it up which males most site unusable.
So old man (im older yet then u) go back to work b;c the work u did waS POORLY DONE.