Oh users do find these things. Every time they release a new "Feature Update" full of problems (which is to say, every time they release a new Feature Update), it turns out those problems had all been well reported by people on Insider Builds. Nearest I can figure, in MS's continuing effort to Embrace OSS software, they have contracted the disease that prevents them from paying attention to what users are complaining about.

The slow start menu is awful. I want to press start then type what I want to open but it is so slow you have to wait nearly 2s to type or it will lose the first few characters. Add to that the search result quality is dire.

I disable web search and Cortana, and it makes all the difference in the world for Win key + type the first few characters of an app:

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
    "ConnectedSearchUseWeb"=dword:00000000
    "AllowCortana"=dword:00000000

https://pastebin.com/ApnfB7wC

Wow, you can do that??

There ought to be an unofficial Windows 10 Settings app that uncovers stuff like this. Somehow Microsoft isn't quite getting it right and they ship Windows 10 with two different ones...

It's at a new location now because why not:

  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]

Thanks for tip - will try this

Just press Windows+Q, and start typing. Much faster.

Hey that works pretty well. Thanks for the tip! :)

Just the Windows key do the trick for me, have been using that since they started adding more crap to the start menu (Vista?).

For me start menu is instant (well, animation takes few milliseconds, but it starts instantly) and I can start to type anything immediately, like <Win>cmd.