For those non-Windows users wondering “What the…This is supposed to be a Git(Hub) Tip of the Day!!” I promise it is. But remember, this is a Windows-first, non-Windows friendly blog series, so from time to time you’ll see some tips that only Windows users can relate to. Think about it this way. If you ever need to use Windows in the future, it can’t hurt to have a few tricks up your sleeve  😉

A coworker was telling me how much he missed the old Windows 7 Start Menu experience, where pressing the Windows Key immediately opens the Run dialog. I’m including this tip here in the series because if you are a Windows user and do not know about this yet, this tip will change your life on Windows.

Press your Windows Key and your Start Menu appears.

Note in the following screenshot:

1. I manually removed all of the live tiles. There’s an option to hide if you right-click on each live tile.
2. I’ve had the Windows taskbar docked to the right side of my screen since 2005. You’re able to see more items listed and you can read more of each item name, which is especially useful if you have multi-instance apps. E.g. if I had two instances of Open Live Writer open, I’d know which blog post I’m editing. But I digress…

Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, take the leap of faith and just start typing, e.g. “notepad”

You’ll see below that the Windows start page thingy changes to the old school run dialog (of sorts). You’ll see whatever you type is shown at the bottom.

Be aware that if you mistype a word, like “notefoo”, Windows will kick off a Bing search in Edge for “notefoo.” There’s probably a way to customize this, but just be aware of some interesting Bing results from your typos!

• Git(Hub) Tip of the Day 2017