Microsoft Windows Registry Guide, Second Edition

Personalizing the Start Menu

Windows has a nice new Start menu, which you can customize more thoroughly than you could with the Start menu in any earlier version of Windows. Open the Taskbar And Start Menu Properties dialog box by right-clicking the taskbar and clicking Properties. On the Start Menu tab, select either the Start Menu option or the Classic Start Menu option to choose which version of the Start menu to use, and then click Customize. The Customize Start Menu dialog box appears; you use this box to customize how Windows displays the Start menu.

You can customize the Start menu using other methods, too. For example, you can use Tweak UI to control which programs appear in the frequently used programs list, and to customize which icons you see on the Start menu. You learn how to use Tweak UI in Chapter 5, “Mapping Tweak UI.” In addition, Windows has dozens of policies that control the Start menu's behavior. Those policies aren't useful as hacks, however, because it's difficult to script and deploy policies to users in the Users and Power Users groups. Members of neither group can change settings in the Policies branch of the registry.

The following sections describe the most useful Start menu hacks. First you learn how to configure what does and does not appear on the Start menu. Then you learn how to prevent some programs from appearing on the frequently used programs list. You also learn how to restore the Start menu's sort order when it's not in alphabetical order.

Configuring the Menu's Contents

Even though you can completely customize the Start menu in the user interface, power users and IT professionals will likely want to script Start menu customizations. Power users don't want to reconfigure the Start menu every time they install Windows. IT professionals can use scripts to deploy these settings or configure them automatically when creating default user profiles. (See Chapter 12, “Deploying User Profiles.”)

If you want to script these settings, you need to know where to find them in the registry. All these settings are in the same place: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. Table 4-4 describes which values you can add to this key. You see two sections in this table. The first section, “Classic Start Menu,” contains values that affect the classic Start menu. The second section, “New Start Menu,” contains values that affect the new Start menu, also known as the Start panel. Most of these settings are REG_DWORD values, but some are REG_SZ values. If the possible data for any of the settings in Table 4-4 includes 0x01, 0x02, and so on, that setting is a REG_DWORD value. If the possible data includes NO or YES, it's a REG_SZ value.

Trimming the Frequently Used Programs List

Each time you run a program, Windows adds it to the list of frequently used programs you see on the Start menu. (See Figure 4-6). However, you might not want every program you open to appear in this list. For example, I don't want to see Notepad in this list, nor do I want to see Command Prompt. By customizing HKCR\Applications, you can choose which programs do and don't appear in this list.

HKCR\Applications contains subkeys for a variety of programs that Windows knows about. The name of each subkey is the name of the program file. Thus, you see the subkeys notepad.exe and explorer.exe in HKCR\Applications. If you want to customize another program, add its subkey to this key. For example, to customize whether Command Prompt appears in the list of frequently used programs, add the subkey cmd.exe to HKCR\Applications. Then, to keep the program off of the list, add the REG_SZ value NoStartPage to it.

Figure 4-6 Windows displays on the Start menu the programs that you frequently use.

Restoring the Sort Order

Unless you disable dragging and dropping on the Start menu (see Table 4-4), users can sort the All Programs menu. Windows also sometimes adds new shortcuts to the bottom of the All Programs menu. In either case, finding the program that you want to run is difficult when the sort order of the Start menu gets disorganized.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder contains the sort orders of the Favorites menu and the Start menu. The subkey Favorites contains the sort order of the Favorites menu. The subkey Start Menu contains the sort order of the classic Start menu, and the subkey Start Menu2 contains the sort order of the new Start menu. Deciphering the contents of these three keys is almost impossible, but you can remove any of them to re-sort the corresponding menu in alphabetical order. For example, to restore the All Programs menu to alphabetical order, remove the subkey Start Menu2. To restore the Favorites menu in both Windows Explorer and Microsoft Internet Explorer, remove the subkey Favorites.

I like to keep a script handy to automatically remove MenuOrder. The following listing is an example. Save this listing to the text file Resort.inf, right-click it, and then click Install. This script is different from the others you've seen in this chapter because you can't uninstall it; its changes are permanent.

Listing 4-5 Resort.inf

[Version] Signature=$CHICAGO$ [DefaultInstall] DelReg=Reg.Settings [Reg.Settings] HKCU,Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder

TIP

You've sorted the Start menu just the way you wanted it—wouldn't it be dandy if you could transfer that sort order to another computer? You're in luck. Export the key MenuOrder to a REG file, and then import that REG file to the computer on which you want to use that sort order.