Controlling the Vista Start Menu
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In this second part of a six-part series on personalizing Vista, you'll learn how to customize the Start menu in various ways. We'll also take our first look at the task bar. This article is excerpted from chapter four of
Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596529597). Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
Other Customizations
Besides the Windows Desktop Search, probably the next easiest way to launch an application is to choose its program icon from the Start menu. Fortunately, the Vista Start menu carries forth an innovation first introduced in Windows XP where the most frequently used programs reside in a list on the Start menu’s lefthand side. I discussed a couple of options for changing what’s displayed here in the previous section.
The list is actually divided into two parts: programs that appear in the bottom division are the most recently opened applications, and just how many appear depends on the customization settings discussed earlier. The ones living in the upper section have been pinned to the Start menu and will always show there, no matter how often they are accessed.
For example, Windows Mail might appear in your Start menu even if you’ve never opened the program because that’s what the Mail link specifies in the Start Menu Customization dialog box.
But as with Windows XP, you have complete control over what is pinned to the Start menu and what is not. You can place other program shortcuts in the pinned section by right-clicking the Start menu icon and choosing Pin to Start Menu from the context menu.
To remove a program from the pinned section, right-click its shortcut and this time choose Unpin from Start Menu. Remember, neither option will change anything else about the program besides how easy it is to find in the Start menu. And if you pin a frequently used program, Vista is smart enough not to show it to you twice in the program list.
Setting the Start menu back to the defaults
As you’ve seen, it’s quite easy to tailor the Start menu. This ease of use can be the proverbial double-edged sword, however. A user who has configured all sorts of Start menu options to best suit her working style may be passing on a computer that is difficult for another person to use if she leaves the company or is simply issued a brand-new machine.
Fortunately, there’s also an easy way to set the Start menu back to its defaults without having to go through either a reinstall or a lengthy reconfiguration process. Here’s what to do:
- Right-click the Start menu and choose Properties from the context menu.
- Choose the Start Menu tab, and then click Customize.
- In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, click Use Default Settings, as shown in Figure 4-5. Click OK to finish the procedure.
Figure 4-5. Quickly resetting the Start menu to its defaults
Changing the Start menu back to its default settings does not affect any programs that have been pinned to the Start menu. Removal of pinned programs must be done manually.
The Start menu and the filesystem
So just where does this Start menu live anyway? Can I dig through the filesystem to see all of the program shortcuts? Or is it a registry setting?
The general answer to both of these questions is “yes.”
It’s just another folder in the filesystem. What a user sees in his Start menu is actually a byproduct of two file locations merging together at logon time. Here’s what happens:
Some of the program shortcuts are available to all users of the computer. Which programs, you ask? The ones stored in this file location:
%systemdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
Other program shortcut groups are available only to the user who is currently logged on. Which ones are these? You can find them here:
%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
where%systemdrive% is the drive letter where the Windows Vista operating system exists, and
%UserProfile% is the path to the user’s unique set of environment folders.
Both folders just mentioned are hidden folders. To display them, you have to change the Windows Explorer Folder options by choosing Organize -> Folder and Search Options, and then selecting “Show hidden files and folders” on the View tab of the ensuing dialog box.
It’s governed by the registry. This is also true, but we’ll have to tackle that topic in a separate section in just a bit. For now, too much still needs to be said about the Start menu folders.
At startup, Vista merges the contents of these two Start menu folders and presents the user with a single Start menu, of course. For each folder stored in one of the Programs folders, as shown in Figure 4-6, Vista builds a Program Start Menu group and associated shortcuts.
Figure 4-6. Editing a Start menu shortcut from the folder location itself
The point here is that if you’re more comfortable configuring the Start menu by using the filesystem locations, by all means go ahead. Open the desired Start menu folder location (remember to enable viewing first) and add or remove application shortcuts as you see fit.
In fact, this can present an administrator with a very powerful option for configuring a system that multiple users will access. Let’s say, for example, that you run an organization with a mobile sales force, and that every person on the sales force checks out computers as needed rather than using a company-issued laptop. You want to place a program icon onto the Start menu so that anyone on the sales team can easily find and launch an application you sell, and therefore, you want it always present on the Start menu’s list of recently used programs.
To carry out the task, simply open the following folder and add a shortcut:
%systemdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
The shortcut you add will now appear for all users of the system.
Next: Adding and changing a menu >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596529597). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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