The whole purpose of the Start menu is, as its name
implies, to start things, particularly programs and documents. Yes, you
can also launch these objects via shortcut icons on the desktop, but
that’s not a great alternative because windows cover the desktop most
of the time. Yes, Windows 7’s enhanced taskbar enables you to launch
stuff with the click of an icon, but there’s only so much room on the
taskbar, so that handy technique should be saved for your most often
used program (more on this later; see “Pinning a Favorite Program to the Taskbar”).
So,
if you want to get something going in Windows 7, the vast majority of
the time you’re going to have to do it via the Start menu. The good
news is that Windows 7’s Start menu is wonderfully flexible and geared,
in fact, to launching objects with as few mouse clicks or keystrokes as
possible. To get to that state, however, you have to work with a few
relatively obscure options and settings, which you’ll learn about in
the next few sections.
Getting More Favorite Programs on the Start Menu
The Start menu is divided vertically into two sections, as shown in Figure 1:
Favorite programs—
This is the left side of the Start menu, which appears by default with
a white background. This side includes shortcut icons for the 10
programs that you’ve used most frequently. You can also “pin” programs
to the top of this list, which I show you how to do in the next section.
Note
If
you’re coming to Windows 7 from Vista or XP, note that Windows 7 does
away with the permanent Internet and E-mail icons at the top of the
Start menu. Why would they do such a thing? For starters, there’s no
email client in Windows 7 (although you can install Windows Live Mail
from the Windows Live Essentials site, downloads.live.com);
for seconds, an icon for Internet Explorer is just a click away on the
new taskbar. So that chunk of Start menu real estate is better used
either for displaying more programs or for pinning your own favorite
programs.
Built-in features—
This is the right side of the Start menu, which appears by default with
a black or gray background. It contains icons for various Windows 7
folders and features.
The
list of favorite programs is one of the best features in Windows 7
because it ensures that the programs you use most often are always just
a couple of mouse clicks away. If there’s a downside to this feature,
it’s that it displays only 10 icons, so the list omits many frequently
used programs. However, if you have enough room, you can tell Windows 7
to display up to 30 icons in this area. Here’s how:
1. | Right-click
the Start button and then click Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu
Properties dialog box appears with the Start Menu tab displayed.
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2. | Click Customize. The Customize Start Menu dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 2.
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3. | Use the Number of Recent Programs to Display spin box to specify the number of favorite programs you want to display.
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4. | If
you don’t think you have enough screen space to display all the icons,
deactivate the Large Icons option (which is near the bottom of the list
of Start menu features). This significantly reduces the amount of space
each icon takes up on the Start menu.
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5. | Click OK in the open dialog boxes.
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Tip
To prevent a program from appearing on the Start menu’s favorite programs list, open the Registry Editor and display the following key:
HKCR\Applications\program.exe
Here, program.exe is the name of the program’s executable file. (If the key doesn’t exist, create it.) Create a string value called NoStartPage. (You don’t need to assign a value to it.) Restart Windows 7 to put the new setting into effect.
Pinning a Favorite Program Permanently to the Start Menu
The
Start menu’s list of favorite programs is such a time-saving feature
that it can be frustrating if a program drops off the list. Another
aggravation is that the icons often change position because Windows 7
displays the programs in order of popularity. When you display the
Start menu, this constant shifting of icons can result in a slight
hesitation while you look for the icon you want. (This is particularly
true if you’ve expanded the maximum number of icons as I described in
the previous section.)
Wouldn’t
it be nice if you could tell Windows 7 to keep a particular icon in a
particular place for all time? Well, you can! Specifically, you can pin
them to the Start menu, which means that Windows 7 moves the icon above
the favorite programs list and keeps it there no matter what.
To do this, first open the Start menu and find the shortcut you want to work with. Then you have two choices:
Figure 3 shows the Start menu with two pinned icons: Windows Live Mail and Command Prompt.
You
can also use this technique to pin shortcuts residing on the desktop to
the pinned programs lists. If you decide later that you no longer want
a shortcut pinned to the Start menu, right-click the shortcut and then
click Unpin from Start Menu.
Tip
When
you display the Start menu, you can select an item quickly by pressing
the first letter of the item’s name. If you add several shortcuts to
the pinned programs list, however, you might end up with more than one
item that begins with the same letter. To avoid conflicts, rename each
of these items so that they begin with a number. For example, renaming
“Backup” to “1 Backup” means you can select this item by pressing 1
when the Start menu is displayed. (To rename a Start menu item,
right-click the item and then click Rename.)
Clearing the Recent Programs List
Windows
7 allows you to clear the Start menu list of recent programs. Why would
you want to do this? You might want to start over with an empty list of
frequent programs so that you can populate it with the programs you
will use over the next few days. Alternatively, you might want to keep
the list cleared for privacy reasons if other people have access to
your computer. Follow these steps to clear the list:
1. | Right-click
the Start button and then click Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu
Properties dialog box appears with the Start Menu tab displayed.
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2. | Deactivate the Store and Display Recently Opened Programs in the Start Menu check box.
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3. | Click Apply. Windows 7 clears the list.
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4. | If you want to start a new list, activate the Store and Display Recently Opened Programs in the Start Menu check box.
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5. | Click OK.
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Tip
If
you need to get rid of only one or two icons from the Start menu’s
favorite programs list, click Start, right-click an icon you want to
delete, and then click Remove from This List.
Setting Program Access and Defaults
You
can modify Windows 7 to use other programs as the default for
activities such as web browsing, email, instant messaging, and media
playing. This enables you to have your favorite programs available in
more convenient locations and to have those programs launch
automatically in certain situations.
Your
version of Windows 7 is most likely set up to use Internet Explorer,
Windows Mail, Windows Messenger, and Windows Media Player as the
default programs for web browsing, email, instant messaging, and media
playing, respectively. This means that these programs launch
automatically in response to certain events. For example, when you
right-click a media file and then click Play, the media plays in
Windows Media Player.
You
can set up as defaults any other programs you have installed for web
browsing, email, instant messaging, and media playing. You can also
disable access to programs so that other users cannot launch them on
your computer. Here are the steps to follow:
1. | Select Start, Default Programs to display the Default Programs window.
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2. | Click Set Program Access and Computer Defaults. Windows 7 displays the Set Program Access and Computer Defaults dialog box.
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3. | Click the configuration you want to start with:
- Computer Manufacturer— This configuration appears only if your computer vendor defined its own program defaults.
- Microsoft Windows— This configuration is the Windows default as defined by Microsoft.
- Non-Microsoft—
This configuration is generated by Windows 7 if you have one or more
non-Microsoft programs available in any of the categories (such as a
web browser or email program).
- Custom— Use this item to configure your own default programs.
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4. | If you activated the Custom configuration, you see options similar to those shown in Figure 4. You can do two things with this configuration:
Activate the option buttons of the programs you prefer to use as the system defaults. Deactivate the Enable Access to This Program check box for any program that you don’t want other users to have access to.
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5. | Click OK to put the new defaults into effect.
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Streamlining the Start Menu by Converting Links to Menus
The
right side of the Start menu contains a number of built-in Windows 7
features, which are set up as links. That is, you click an item and a
window or a program runs in response. That’s fine for items such as
Search or Default Programs, but it’s not very efficient for an item
such as the Control Panel, where you’re usually looking to launch a
specific icon. It seems wasteful to have to open the Control Panel
window, launch the icon, and then close the Control Panel.
A
better approach is to convert a link into a menu of items that would
normally display in a separate window. For example, the Control Panel
item could display a menu of its icons. One of the nicer features in
Windows 7 is that it’s easy to convert many of the Start menu links
into menus. Here are the required steps:
1. | Right-click
the Start button and then click Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu
Properties dialog box appears with the Start Menu tab displayed.
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2. | Click Customize to open the Customize Start Menu dialog box.
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3. | In the list of Start menu items, find the following items and activate the Display as a Menu option:
Computer Control Panel Documents Games Music Personal Libraries (your username) Pictures Recorded TV Videos
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4. | Activate the Favorites Menu check box to add a menu of your Internet Explorer favorites to the Start menu.
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5. | Activate
the Recent Items check box. This adds the Recent Items menu to the
Start menu, which displays the last 15 documents that you’ve worked
with.
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6. | In
the Start Menu Items group, find the System Administrative Tools item
and activate the Display on the All Programs Menu and the Start Menu
option. This gives you an Administrative Tools menu that offers
shortcuts to features such as Computer Management, Device Manager,
System Configuration, and the Local Security Policy editor.
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7. | Click OK to return to the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.
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8. | Make
sure that the Store and Display a List of Recently Opened Files check
box is activated. This ensures that Windows 7 populates the Recent
Items list.
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9. | Click OK.
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Adding, Moving, and Removing Other Start Menu Icons
Besides
the main Start menu, you can also customize the icons on the All
Programs menu and submenus to suit the way you work. Using the
techniques I discuss in this section, you can perform the following
Start menu productivity boosts:
Move important features closer to the beginning of the All Programs menu hierarchy.
Remove features you don’t use.
Add new commands for features not currently available on the All Programs menu (such as the Registry Editor).
Windows
7 offers three methods for adding and removing Start menu shortcuts,
and I explain each of them in the next three sections.
Dragging and Dropping onto the Start Button
The quickest way to add a shortcut is to drag an executable file from Windows Explorer and then do either of the following:
Drop it on the Start button— This pins the shortcut to the Start menu.
Hover over the Start button—
After a second or two, the main Start menu appears. Now hover the file
over All Programs until the menu appears, and then drop the file where
you want the shortcut to appear.
Working with the Start Menu Folder
The All Programs shortcuts are stored in two places:
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs— Shortcuts in this subfolder appear only in the current user’s Start menu. Here, %AppData% is %SystemDrive%\Users\user\AppData\Roaming, where user is the name of the current user.
%AllUsersProfile%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs— The All Users\Start Menu\Programs subfolder. Shortcuts in this folder appear to all user accounts defined on the computer. Here, %AllUsersProfile% is %SystemDrive%\ProgramData.
Tip
A quick way to get to the current user’s Start Menu folder is to right-click the Start button and then click Explore.
By
working with these folders, you get the most control over not only
where your Start menu shortcuts appear, but also the names of those
shortcuts. Here’s a summary of the techniques you can use:
Within the Programs folder and its subfolders, you can drag existing shortcuts from one folder to another.
To
create a new shortcut, drag the executable file and drop it inside the
folder you want to use. Remember that if you want to create a shortcut
for a document or other nonexecutable file, right-drag the file and
then select Create Shortcuts Here when you drop the file.
You
can create your own folders within the Programs folder hierarchy and
they’ll appear as submenus within the All Programs menu.
You can rename a shortcut the same way you rename any file.
You can delete a shortcut the same way you delete any file.
Working with All Programs Menu Shortcuts Directly
Many
of the chores listed in the previous section are more easily performed
by working directly within the All Programs menu itself. That is, you
open the All Programs menu, find the shortcut you want to work with,
and then use any of these techniques:
Drag the shortcut to another section of its current menu.
Drag the shortcut to another menu or to the Recycle Bin.
Right-click the shortcut and then select a command (such as Delete) from the context menu.
