At least as far as keystrokes go, this behavior isn't new -- you could do the same in Win7 (hadn't checked if Vista does this or not). There is a scenario where it won't work well -- you've so many files/programs with similar names that you overwhelm the search functionality -- of course, if that's the situation, you're going to run into other problems anyway...

I suppose if you want, you could even set up user toolbars in Win8, which I believe still work in Win8. I much prefer user-defined toolbar simply because I can get at them easier than desktop icons (which are prone to get covered up by a window).

>IMO, the WIndows 8 way is superior to a hierarchical menu. Press the Start button and you go to the Start Screen. Instead of navigating through menu after menu, just go to the start screen and start typing the name of the program you need. Faster, easier.
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>>Hi All,
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>>I changed my home notebook and it has Win 8.1. It has a start menu but it's really different. There isn't applications submenu with this weird start menu. I don't like it. I know there are different start menu add ins for W8. What's your "freeware" advice?