Is your Start Menu a cluttered mess? Does it look like this:

Would you like it to look organized like this:

Follow along and I’ll show you how!

Screencast

It might be easier understand this tip if you watched the Screencast: Watch the Windows Tip: Clean And Organize Your Start Menu Screencast.

Intro To You Start Menu

All of the programs in your All Programs menu are actually shortcuts to the actual item, which is (probably) located in:

C:\Programs Files

These shortcuts are located in one of two places:

1. C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs ^[1]
2. C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Start Menu\Programs ^[2]

^[1] Shortcuts in this folder are visible to all users.

^[2] Typing this address will open the user account folder for the user that is currently logged in. If you have more then one user account on this machine, you can substitute “%username%” for the user’s account name!

You can access these folders by hitting the Windows Key+R, then entering one of the above addresses into the Run dialog. You can also right-click the Start Button and hit Explore All Users, which will open the All Users folder.

How To

It’s really as easy as opening the Start Menu folder (using the Run method above) and dragging & dropping the shortcuts around, you can also right-click and create new folders. I have a lot of media programs (iTunes, The Core Media Player, Nero, WinDVD, etc.) so I create a folder titled Media and put all of those programs in there! I also created folders for Design Programs, Compression Utilities and more!

The Same Folder Under Different Accounts

If you create the two folders with the same name in different user account folders, the All Programs menu will show all of the items, from both of these folders, when that user is logged into their account!

Example:

My kids have a few games (Finding Nemo, etc.) that I will never play, I don’t want to see them when I’m logged in. Windows already ships with a folder named Games and it’s located in the All Users folder. So I navigated to kid’s user account, created a Games folder and put the shortcuts to their games in that folder. When they are logged in, they’ll see Finding Nemo and I won’t see it when I’m logged in!

Also, the kids don’t need access to PHP or MySQL so I created a Web Programing folder under my account!

If that angers you too, then keep reading, this little Windows hack will let you delete the default folders like My eBooks, My Videos & My Music once and for all!

Screencast

Watch the Windows Hack: Delete The eBooks Folder Forever Screencast.

How To

Hit the Windows Key+R, then type:

Regsvr32 /u mydocs.dll

Go to your My Documents folder and delete any of those “My” folders you don’t want! That’s it, all done!

What It Does

From Wikipedia:

regsvr32.exe is a command-line utility in Microsoft Windows operating systems for registering and unregistering DLLs and ActiveX controls with Windows.

To be used with regsvr32.exe, a DLL must export the functions DllRegisterServer and DllUnregisterServer.

Usage

Regsvr32 [/u] [/n] [/i[:cmdline]] dllname

/u – Unregister server
/i – Call DllInstall passing it an optional [cmdline];
when used with /u calls dll uninstall
/n – do not call DllRegisterServer;
this option must be used with /i

If you don’t know what this stuff is then don’t get to into crazy using them, just run the one I have shown you!

This little trick will let you put a little breathing room between the icons in the All Programs folder in your Windows Start Menu. It allows you to group similar icons together by spacing them apart from other icons.

Screencast

You guys seem to enjoy these so I created another screencast! View the Windows Tip: Put Some Space In Your Start Menu Screencast.

Note: This won’t work correctly if you have done my Registry Hack: Automatically Sort The Programs Menu Alphabetically, the blank shortcuts would be sorted to the top of the group!

How To

1. Right click the desktop and make a new shortcut.
   
2. In the “Type the location of the item:” text box, select any target for this shortcut – it can be anything:
   C:\
3. In the “Type a name for this shortcut” text box, press the spacebar once, the only character you want in there is a single space!
4. Right-click the new shortcut and click Properties.
5. Delete the text in the Target field.
6. Click Change Icon button and select a blank icon. The blue box below is my selected icon.
   
7. Click the “OK” button in both dialog boxes. Your new shortcut should only have the Shortcut Arrow – no name or icon:
   
8. Now, Click and drag this new shortcut onto the Start button, then into the All Programs menu and then to the desired location! You can copy this same shortcut as many times as you want.

I have produced another Screencast for this How To! View the Create A CPU Meter Screencast!

This Registry Hack will place a minimized copy of the Task Manager in your System Tray so you can monitor CPU usage at all times! You won’t need this if Registry Hack if you are using a Yahoo Widget or a Widget for Vista. Jon Lee pointed out that he doesn’t like the Vista Widgets because they take up too much room, so this trick would still be a good one if you agree with him!

To have the Task Manager running just for your Windows account, navigate to your user account’s startup folder by hitting the Windows Key+R and entering:

C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

To have the Task Manager running for all of the accounts on the computer, navigate to:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Right-click in the window and click New, then Shortcut.

In the “Type location of the item” text box, type the following:

C:\Windows\System32\Taskmgr.exe

Give the shortcut an appropriate name like “Monitor CPU Usage” and click the “Finish” button. Now, right-click the new shortcut and click Properties. Under the “Run” drop down list, select “Minimized” and click OK.

Double-click the shortcut now and you should see it pop up in your System Tray. If not, you can open the Task Manager by hitting CTRL+SHIFT+ESC and under Options make sure “Minimize on Use” and “Hide when Minimized” are selected.

The next time you start your machine, you will have a CPU Meter in your Task Tray!

In the past, I wrote an article on Automating Disk Cleanup, this article is for users who still want to manually run the Disk Cleanup Wizard which you can find by navigating to: Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup.exe

The Screencast

I have produced my very first Screencast for this How To! View the Disable Disk Cleanup Wizard Compression Calculation Screencast!

What This Does

This Registry Hack will disable the Disk Cleanup Wizard from calculating the space that could be saved by compressing the drive, which, if you have a large drive or a couple of drives, could take a while. It’s a time saver: it skips the calculation time and goes right to the dialog where you can choose what to clean.

Open the Registry Editor by hitting the Windows Key+R and typing: regedit

Navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Compress Old Files

In the right panel, double-click the (Default) key. Clear the text in the “Value data” text field.

Click the “OK” button and close the Registry! The next time you run the Disk Cleanup Wizard, you will jump directly to the Disk Cleanup dialog!