Windows 8 Secrets: The WinX Menu and its hashing algorithm

Last week, a reader – “Windows Fan” – tipped me off to an article on Vishal Guptas blog indicating how to customize the new WinX menu in Windows 8. (You know, the menu that appears when you right-click the lower-left Start tip.) Not happy with hacking core system files and peeling back file system security, I dug a little deeper to understand what’s going on and came up with a simpler solution.

So let’s start at the top. The WinX menu is a simple context menu that appears when you right-click the Start tip that appears when you squish the mouse into the lower-left corner of the screen. The purpose of the menu is not to act as a Start Menu replacement but rather as a springboard to perform advanced system functions that are slightly out of reach. For example, if you’re trying to kill a runaway system process, you will probably need quick access to Task Manager, an elevated Command Prompt, and perhaps Programs and Features to uninstall the culprit app. Launching those applications in succession via the Start Screen would be a pain in the rump.

Read more: With Windows 8

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