This is a bit of a mea cupla re Windows 10...

Well it's coming up for 5 years since I started using Windows 10 (May or June 2015 when we started testing with it) and I still think it is one of the better editions. I liked 3.1, Windows 98 Second edition, Win XP, Windows 7.

But I have always been really bad through most of those versions of abusing my desktop space. I drop things on it constantly. Shortcuts to things. program launches. Things I'm working on. Inevitably when it all gets too much I copy all the crap into another folder and start again.

And... yes... I know it's wrong and I'm a hopeless case.

So in a way I still use Windows a little bit like I did back in 3.1 days and even though I have used (and supported tangentially because of the software the company I worked for made) every version since there is still a legacy there. And a like for DOS, Robocopy and bat files.

I think I found Windows 8 more of an irritation to work round than a positive venture and 10 is a descendant I guess.

So...

There I was thinking that my desktop was taking over again and I could do with a tidy up. And wondering whether I should reorganise the taskbar that has shortcuts to all the programs I use regularly as it was getting unwieldy when I suddenly noticed the start menu that I have been ignoring for 5-8 years. And I thought. I wonder what that is there for?

Previously I have passed it by as an irritation offering me news that I don't want, apps and movies and games that I will never use, just a thing I am glad when it disappears - why are some of those icons SO LARGE???

So then the penny dropped that must have dropped for everyone else apart from me.

That it is rather good.

My life is now revolutionised. My new desktop world has nothing on it apart from one folder, the Recycle bin (which I can't get rid of) and my Killchrome.bat file that shuts the memory consuming multiple versions of Chrome running in the background and foreground as it occasionally gets in the way when recording music. And nothing else.

In any program I now press the Windows key and am one click away from launching anything I need - from storage, to music, to little tools I find handy, online meetings, all the folders I use.

I kick myself for being an idiot and making life difficult for myself when the most obvious thing that was trying to help was staring at me every day. I must have clicked on Start 10's of thousands of times over the last 5 years...