With Windows 10, Microsoft has returned the Start menu to its original place, the taskbar. The Start menu, as you likely have discovered, looks and acts pretty much like the good old Start menu of Windows 7 but it includes some of the best features introduced with Windows 8 as well.
We have already covered how you can customize the Start menu or even disable the Start menu by enabling the Windows 8-style Start screen. The Windows 10 Star menu, just like the Start menu of Windows 7, offers a search box to quickly search traditional programs as well as apps installed from the Store.
Many of you already know that the search box can be used to search the web right from the Start menu. To do so, we just have to enter a keyword before hitting the Enter key to get results from the web using Microsoft’s Bing search engine. I know, this is a feature which was present in Windows 8.1 Update as well but what many users not aware is one can type website URLS in the search box to launch the website in a web browser.
That is, you just need to enter the URL of a website followed by enter key to open the URL in your default web browser. For instance, you can type intowindows.com in the search box and then press enter key to open IntoWindows in your default web browser.
Another interesting thing about this feature is that it works flawlessly even if your default web browser isn’t running. That is, Windows will automatically launch the default web browser to open the URL in a new tab.
While the above feature was present in Windows 8.1 Update as well, most users never discovered the feature.
Personally, I never used this feature in Windows 8.1 as switching back to the Start screen just to launch a website didn’t make sense. Now that Start menu is back with Windows 10, some of you might find this feature useful.
And if you’re on Windows 7, do check out our how to search the web right from Windows 7 Start menu guide.
