If your Start button isn't readily available or you don't want to use the mouse, you can bring up the Start menu by pressing <Ctrl><Esc>. You can then use your cursor keys to navigate the menu.

Here's a little trick I hope you'll never need. Working with Windows 95/98/ME/XP is easy. All you need to do is click your mouse at the Start button and you can get to anything on your system, right? Well, true, but what happens if your mouse quits working. It can happen. Without your mouse, you can do just about anything on your system including properly shutting it down. Although Microsoft has geared everything to the mouse, it didn't forget that there are some people out there who have problems with the mouse every once in a while. If you hold the <Ctrl> key down and tap the <Esc> key, you'll pop up the Start menu. You can then use your cursor keys to select things. As I say, I hope you never need this, but it's nice to keep this in the back of your mind just in case.

 Hughes Glantzberg