Personalizing Vista - Customizing the Vista Simple Start Menu
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If you’ve spent time exploring the Classic Start menu options, you’re off to a good start getting a handle on the Simple Start menu ones. That’s because all the options available with the Classic Start menu are present with the Simple Start menu. The difference is that Simple Start menu users also get some additional features not available with the Classic version.
As I’ve opined, I think you’ll really get a lot of practical use out of these new features. Here’s how to change some of the default settings:
- Right-click the Start menu and choose Properties from the context menu.
- Choose the “Start menu” radio button (refer to Figure 4-1) and then click the Customize button.
- From the Customize Start Menu dialog box, shown in Figure 4-3, you can select from an array of choices to help users get the most from the Start menu.
- Make the desired changes and click OK twice to commit the changes.
Figure 4-3. Customizing the Simple Start menu
Notice here that most of the options have three choices:
- Display as a link
- Display as a menu
- Don’t display this item
Choosing to display as a link causes another window to open when the link is clicked. For example, note that this is the default option for the Control Panel display. That means when you click this link (it glows more like a button, really, but then again, I wasn’t consulted when writing the code for the Start menu options dialog box, surprisingly), the Control Panel opens in its own window. If you select “Display as a menu,” the Control Panel Start menu option will then cascade a list of possible applets that can be launched right from there.
Choosing not to display a certain item can be an administrative option for reducing the temptation to launch certain Start menu items such as the Control Panel or the Network Configuration window. Note, however, that this is not the same thing as restricting access to each of these tools. To restrict access, use a Group Policy Object (GPO). We will discuss GPOs in Chapter13.
Here are some other Start menu customizations of note, along with their default settings:
Enable context menus and dragging and dropping (enabled)
This allows users to right-click a Start menu item to bring up a list of actions. You can use the context menus to, among other things, open a file or application, or pin the application shortcut to the Start menu so that it’s more readily available. Obviously, it also allows dragging and dropping to rearrange Start menu items. One of these context menu items, by the way, gives you the ability to delete the selected Start menu item. Administrators might consider disabling this option to prevent accidental reconfiguration of the Start menu. (There’s also an interesting note about dragging and dropping on the Start menu, which I’ll address in a bit.)
Highlight newly installed programs (enabled)
This option draws attention to new programs by highlighting them in the Start menu.
Open submenus when I pause on them with the mouse pointer (enabled)
This simply means that users don’t have to click to open a program group submenu. You might want to consider unchecking this if you’re using the “submenu” display options rather than the “Display as a link” option for items such as the Control Panel and documents. When disabled, you will only see the cascading submenu after clicking.
Search (enabled)
This shows the Search option in the Start menu. Using it will bring up a dialog box such as the one seen in Figure 4-4. Because the Windows Desktop Search is built into the Start menu anyway, administrators can safely disable this link without any loss of functionality.
Use large icons (enabled)
This default setting uses large icons in the Vista Simple Start menu. As the name implies, unchecking this box reduces the size of Start menu icons, but will not affect the overall size of Vista’s Start menu.
Start menu size (default of 9)
Located just below the main dialog box section, this absolutely can control overall Start menu size. It determines how many recently used programs are listed. You can set this value all the way up to 30, but the Start menu will then likely take up the entire left side of the screen.
Sort all programs by name (enabled)
By default, Vista lists contents of the All Programs Start menu folder alphabetically. Unchecking this makes it so that programs are listed in order of installation. This is a subtle yet welcome change from older Windows Start menus that had to be sorted by name manually to make programs easier to find.
Internet and mail links (Internet Explorer and Windows Mail by default)
These will be the top two shortcuts in the most recently used program list. Users have the option here to change the program displayed (if other mail and/or Internet browsers have been installed), or to disable the program links altogether.
Figure 4-4. The Vista Search dialog box with advanced options expanded
By default, only users with administrative privileges can drag and drop to rearrange the Start menu.
Please check back next week for the continuation of this article.
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly, 2007; ISBN: 0596529597). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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