One hitch in Beta 1: You can't rearrange the order of items on the All Programs menu the way you can in earlier versions of Windows. You can drag-and-drop rearrange items on the main Start Menu, though, so perhaps Microsoft will get to this on the All Programs menu as well.
Application Search
Just below the All Programs button on the main menu is a search field. There's nothing that shows that this is different from other search fields in Windows, but it is different. Its reason for being is to help you rapidly find and launch programs. Loosely speaking, it's a type-ahead program launcher that searches your entire drive for registered applications based on text you type.
In the Beta 1 build, it's a little quirky. For example, type "e" and you don't just get programs that start with the letter E. Instead, you get program names that have the letter E as the first word in any part of their names. So, for example, Windows Event Viewer and SnagIt 7 Editor both show up. Somewhat annoyingly, you have to type "regedt32" to be given the option to run REGEDT32.EXE, or the System Registry Editor.
This functionality seems to be keyed to programs that report formal names. As is, it doesn't make it any easier to launch programs by their file names. I think Microsoft should optimize this feature for power users. Any sense that rank-and-file Windows users are going to use this frequently is, I believe, misplaced. The idea that we might want to find every item with the word "Explorer" in its name because we can't remember if we want Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer is, I think, overthinking the utility of this feature.
Pop-Up Menus
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In Beta 1, Microsoft is using a right-arrow user-interface symbol to indicate that there are other things you can do with a given item. Then when you click that arrow, a menu pops up or down showing options. To me, this is a little confusing. Both the Log Off and Shut Down buttons work this way. My chief annoyance with this is that the little arrow requires too much precision to click rapidly. And, in particular, the default Shut Down operation is, well, shutting down. When you want to Restart, you need to click the little arrow and then select Restart from the pop-up menu.
Here's what I think Microsoft needs to do: Settle on one user experience for managing the process of Windows shut-down, log-off, restart, hibernate, and so forth. Windows XP has two completely separate ways of doing this, one aimed at consumers and the other designed for corporations. And that causes problems with applications especially OEM PC programs written to this process. It's also confusing to end users. If Microsoft puts some development time into this area, I think it could come up with a single process that works in all settings. Perhaps the controls for things like "never remember passwords" for the corporate logins could be handled by policies in user account settings.
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