Tap to open the Start menu (or to close it!). If you feel that life’s too short, however, tap the key on the keyboard instead, or the button if it’s a tablet. If you’re the type who bills by the hour, you can open the Start menu ( Figure 1-3, lower left) by clicking it with the mouse.

But it’s still called the Start menu, and it’s still the gateway to everything on the PC. In Windows 10, as you’ve probably noticed, the word “Start” doesn’t actually appear on the Start menu, as it did for years now the Start menu is just a square button in the lower-left corner of your screen, bearing the Windows logo ( ). Just about everything you do on your PC begins-or can begin-with your Start menu. It lists every useful piece of software on your computer, including commands, programs, and files. That’s why the Start menu is so important ( Figure 1-4).

They may as well bear a sticker reading, “No user-serviceable parts inside.” The vast majority of them are not for you they’re support files, there for behind-the-scenes use by Windows and your applications.

Windows is composed of 50 million lines of computer code, scattered across your hard drive in thousands of files.

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