All Programs / Left Pane menu width too small

With the "All Programs" now appearing inside the left pane of the start menu,
and not cascading as in XP, I am finding that the text on some of the entries
are too wide for the allowable space.

For example, I have just installed Visual Studio 2005 SDK v3.
It installed ( didn't get chance to change it during install ) under All
Programs | Visual Studio SDK | 2006.09. By the time you have navigated to
the final menu entry, 5 of the 9 entries are truncated by the view.

Even if you type "visual" in the search entry at the bottom, 4 or the about
5 are still to0 wide.

Can I change the width of the left pane, or revert back to cascading menus,
with XP start menu style. Changing the start menu to "Classic" in the
properties reverts back to pre-XP menu style ( single column ).

i don't understand why MS believes that there is only One Correct Design for
the start menu UI... and why that One Correct Design changes with each
version of Windows. I loathe the new crampt start menu too. On my monitor,
which I almost always run at 2048x1536, it looks like a tiny little impotent
thing, instead of the gateway to everything. I worked around its lack of
vertical height by changing my list of recent programs to be 20 entries
instead of the default, but its lack of horizontal expanse appears to be
something that MS believes we want and/or need.

Another start menu screwup is that there is now no visual cue next to the
start menu's right-pane items. Instead of being able to peripherally see the
control panel icon, or favorites icon, or whatever, one must now actually
read the text in the start menu. I'm sure the new "don't show the icon until
the item is hovered-over, and then show it several inches away from the item
it goes with" was thought to be "cute" during design... but as so many cute
things turn out to be, it is counterproductive.

Vista, and its start menu in particular, is an exercise in style over
substance. So, instead of "let the user resize the start menu freely", we
get - "if you don't like how it works, then revert to the previous "obsolete"
design... and, as punishment for doing so, you can't have the new visual
style".

I thought the day of tying visual design to functionality was winding down.
Apparently not.

--
tmike
tmike at tmike your dot pants com
(to email, remove your pants)

Totally agree with your statements.

tmike escribió:

> i don't understand why MS believes that there is only One Correct Design for
> the start menu UI... and why that One Correct Design changes with each
> version of Windows. I loathe the new crampt start menu too. On my monitor,
> which I almost always run at 2048x1536, it looks like a tiny little impotent
> thing, instead of the gateway to everything. I worked around its lack of
> vertical height by changing my list of recent programs to be 20 entries
> instead of the default, but its lack of horizontal expanse appears to be
> something that MS believes we want and/or need.
>
> Another start menu screwup is that there is now no visual cue next to the
> start menu's right-pane items. Instead of being able to peripherally see the
> control panel icon, or favorites icon, or whatever, one must now actually
> read the text in the start menu. I'm sure the new "don't show the icon until
> the item is hovered-over, and then show it several inches away from the item
> it goes with" was thought to be "cute" during design... but as so many cute
> things turn out to be, it is counterproductive.
>
> Vista, and its start menu in particular, is an exercise in style over
> substance. So, instead of "let the user resize the start menu freely", we
> get - "if you don't like how it works, then revert to the previous "obsolete"
> design... and, as punishment for doing so, you can't have the new visual
> style".
>
> I thought the day of tying visual design to functionality was winding down.
> Apparently not.
>