We can start NetBeans by double-clicking on its icon. We should see the NetBeans splash screen while it is starting up.
Note
If NetBeans was installed from an OS independent zip file, then the NetBeans icon will not be present in the desktop. For this particular case, NetBeans needs to be started by executing the appropriate binary under the netbeans/bin directory.
Once NetBeans starts, we should see a page with links to demos, tutorials, sample projects, and so on.
NetBeans defaults to showing this start page every time it is started, if we don't wish for this page to be displayed automatically every time NetBeans is started, we can disable this behavior by unchecking the checkbox labeled Show on Startup at the bottom of the page. We can always get the start page back by going to Help | Start Page.