Mr. Fix-It Computer Services

Cleaning up your Start Menu

Like many of you, I get frustrated by the mess that gets put in the Windows Start Menu by numerous programs - usually at the time they install or update, but occasionally even when they just run. I don't like install routines that do not even ask you whether or where to install their shortcuts, and often find myself manually arranging and rearranging the Start Menus. (Yes, there are usually at least two in many Windows versions. See the details below.)

Of course, you can manually do the same thing yourself with Windows Explorer or any other file manager, especially a two-paned one like the freeware Xplorer2 Lite, FreeCommander, and Alt Commander, a freeware almost clone of Total Commander, or even Total Commander itself. But did you know there are programs to make it easier and faster to create or maintain order out of chaos?

Easier? Faster? OK, I'm in. I found three programs that claim to meet those goals - one freeware, one shareware, and one freeware/shareware, depending on the features you would like. As I am a huge proponent of freeware or open-source programs, if they work well, I did not install or review the shareware product "Easy Start Menu Organizer", but if you would like to read more information and user opinions/reviews, go to http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/easy-start-menu-organizer/.

First, I tried the freeware SMOz (Start Menu Organizer). SMOz categorizes the items in the start menu according to a "template" file which can be easily modified to fit your needs. A sample template file (similar to an ini file) is included in the download, and consists of categories and values. Files/Directories that match a value, which can be simple text or a regular expression, are moved to directories specified by categories. This keeps your start menu clean without the pain of manually organizing it every time you reinstall windows. SMOz is fast, because it doesn’t actually perform the changes until you click "Apply". It combines the global (All Users) and the user shortcuts into a single view, but still keeps them in their separate folders, so you don’t need to worry about keeping tract of what goes where.

Honestly, I only tried this program out briefly before uninstalling it, because it just didn't "hook me". The concept sounds good, and probably would work well, once you tweaked your template.

Well, I saved the best for last. Tidy Start Menu, comes in both a freeware and pro version with a few more options.

Program description from the Tidy Start Menu website:

"Are you tired of searching for programs in a long "Start Menu" list? If so, this program is for you. It allows you to arrange all the shortcuts in the Start Menu. Your Start Menu looks neat, and you can easily and quickly find any program you want. For example, you can create a special "Games" category, and when opening the Start Menu you will see a "Games" section (instead of a list of the games) in which you will find the game you need."

Tidy Start Menu makes it very easy to organize your start menu plus it will look for broken links. In the freeware version, you can’t define your own categories, but only have the nine it comes with: Entertainment, Games, Graphics, Internet, Office, Other, Programming, Security, and Utilities, and you cannot use Drag-n-Drop. The pro version also makes it easy to assign icons to folders, even having an option to do so automatically.

In my testing of Tidy Start Menu (free), I found that it works easily and is fast to organize the main categories under your Start Menu, but I was a bit frustrated by the freeware version's limitation of not creating your own categories. Of course, you could still use this as a quick start to organizing, then exit the program and further tweak your Start Menu(s) with a standard file explorer.

My other frustration with the freeware version was that it only addressed the topmost level of your Start Menu, and, if like me, you have nested layers of menu (\Start Menu\Programs\Office\HTML & CSS Editing Tools\EasyHtml\Help), it will not help with those laying below the top level. The Drag-n-Drop offered by the Pro version may address this limitation, but I have not tried it yet.

Finally, the Pro version's ability to easily or even automatically assign icons to Start Menu folders would be a really nice feature to use, but again, if you want to do this manually, it is not that difficult. In Windows XP, just right-click on the folder icon in the Start Menu that you would like to change, and select Properties. Go to the Customize tab and click the Change Icon button. Browse to the file containing an icon that you would like to use and click Open, then OK, and OK again. Done! You need to do this for each and every folder that you want to change, but it is fairly fast to at least change the icons for your top-level folders, and it really makes your menu look better, as well as easier to use. Other Windows versions may have a slightly different method, but should be similar enough to easily figure out how to accomplish.

My verdict:

I really like Tidy Start Menu, but see no reason to pay to upgrade to the Pro version. If your Start Menu is a complete mess, it will help you to quickly and easily whip your menu into shape, and when you are through, you can further refine your work with one of the excellent two-paned file managers mentioned above. If I do test the Pro version of Tidy Start Menu, I will update this article accordingly, but for now, I definitely recommend the freeware version.

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Start Menu details:

In Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me, the Start Menu is located in %windir%\Start Menu, or, if there are multiple users, %windir%\Profiles\username\Start Menu.

In Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, and 2003, the Start Menu is located in %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu for individual users, or %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu for "All Users".

In Windows Vista, the folder is located in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu for individual users, or C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu for "All Users".

You can access the Start Menu folder by right-clicking on the Start button, and clicking "Open" to open the user Start Menu, or "Open All Users" to open the "All Users" Start Menu.