Lately, I’ve seen more than my share of commercials telling me that Windows Mojave (a/k/a Vista) doesn’t suck. But it does. At least the version of Internet Explorer that comes bundled with Windows Vista. My #1 gripe with Internet Explorer 7 is that it breaks all the rules, and not in a good way. For decades now, we have all grown accustomed to using the drop-down menus that appear at the top of the application window. On Firefox, you will find the File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools and Help menus located in the upper left-hand corner of the application window. The menus are in that same location on Notepad and Minesweeper. But, that is not the case with Internet Explorer.
So, what lead me down this path? Well, I was searching for the Help menu on Internet Explorer yesterday and I couldn’t find it. No drop-down menus at the top of the application window. Instead, the menus have been dumped into the toolbar. So, I studied each of the icons and couldn’t find the one labeled Help. Next, I did what everyone else usually would do when confronted with a problem. I turned to Google. For all I know, maybe Microsoft dropped the Help menu because they thought the application was so straightforward that no one needed help. Well, one of the Google search results lead to a Microsoft page that confirmed that Internet Explorer had a Help menu. But, where was it?
After another round of clicking on just about everything on the toolbar, I finally found it. To the right of the Tools menu, there is a >> link. Clicking on it displays Help as a submenu item. Goodness. Should it take 15 minutes to find a Help menu?
7 responses to “Windows Mojave Sucks. Internet Explorer Help Menu Found”
Well, I can certainly see your point about the menu bar and not being able to find anything because Internet Explorer isn’t exactly the easiest application to use. However, one thing that baffles me the most about your 15-minute conundrum is that you couldn’t find the Help menu. Honestly, I could probably take a monkey, place him in a computer room for 10 minutes, and teach him the rule of thumb in Windows: when in doubt, use F1. I could also look at the fact that there IS a Menu bar and that yes, in fact, you CAN have it permanently on-screen: Tool>Menu Bar…was it REALLY that hard?! Now, I may not be the biggest fan of Windows Vista, because yes they have changed a LOT of things too quickly, but I don’t see how it is grounds for you to complain about not being able to find a Menu Bar when all you really need to do–all anyone ever really NEEDS to do– is THINK. Needless to say, if we start THINKING and stop basing our beliefs off of the next average-joe’s simple little problem that he didn’t have the mental capacity to fix, we probably wouldn’t have any of these negative connotations about anything, let alone Vista. And I leave you with this: what is the Help button and where is it located on the Linuz OS? You couldn’t find the Vista one, but does that mean you will have any less trouble finding it on any other OS?
Thanks for the Tools > Menu Bar tip. I think that Menu Bar On should be the default configuration instead of the other way around. My problem is that when the Menu Bar is off, the menu structure in IE is illogical where some items are grouped under Tools and others under the non-descriptive >> link. Apparently, Help is a valuable enough feature to merit a place on the Menu Bar. So, when the Menu Bar is off, why hide it into a secondary menu under a link that no one would reasonably click-on. >>?
A fair remark–the Menu Bar should be always-on as a standard, but for the improvement of appearance it’s safe to say they simply thought it an eye-soar and placed it as a drop-down. Also, one could use the ‘Alt’ button to drop the Menu Bar down–I do that all the time to access my favorites on my laptop. As for the ‘hiding’ of the Help button, I would have to say increasing the viewable-screen area and overall simplistic appearance (if no 3rd party toolbars are present…) were the main goals in mind. And of course there is F1–never forget that hotkey, it may save your life! (Well, not really…)
I just spent that same 15 minutes and it would have been longer if not for your post.
that is why people love Macs. everything is standardized. Don’t know if you have the latest Microsoft office, but they totally re-wrote their interface on Word. I spend more time trying to find stuff now and it has no relation to the other office products. Adobe does this standardization right – Microsoft has not learned their lesson…
The help button in Linux is located on the right hand side of the taskbar, it looks like a little lifesaver
Not unreasonable for you to have missed that, but if I took a monkey, locked him in a computer room….
[…] I’m so unfamiliar with Windows apps that it took me close to forever to figure out where the help menu was on Internet Explorer. For me, the obvious place too look would be in Control Panel > Printers. […]
True, but monkeys have one big advantage over us dumb-ass humans… they’re the writing code every day. Well I guess someone has to do it. Keep on treckin!