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CHAPTER 3
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MANAGING THE WINDOWS DESKTOP
Some menu items can be turned off or disabled as shown in the previous
section, but most of the annoyances can be resolved only through judicious
pruning of the Start menu. There are two main ways to do this: dragging
items around the Start menu one at a time, or using Windows Explorer to
work with multiple items at the same time.
Click and drag an icon to a different location on the Start menu.
Windows displays a black horizontal bar showing you where the item will
land when you release the mouse button. Using this method, you can quickly
pin a frequently-used application to the Start menu.
If you are using the standard Windows XP menus and want an easier way to
reorganize your menus, you have to do a little digging with Windows Explorer.
Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then Windows Explorer. By default
it opens to My Documents. In the folders pane, browse to Documents and
Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs (see Figure 3.16). From this point you
can follow the rest of the Start menu hierarchy and use the multiple-selection
and drag-and-drop capabilities of Windows Explorer to create and delete fold-
ers, move icons and folders around, and in general make the organization
more to your liking. For applications that install to a specific user’s directory,
browse to Documents and Settings\%username%\Start Menu\Programs.
One incomprehensible Windows design decision is the non-alphabetization
of menus by default. In other words, when you move menu items around,
they are tacked on at the end of the current menu structure, rather than put
in alphabetical order automatically like in any other folder. To remedy this
decision Microsoft included a sorting option that you must invoke each time
you want the menu structure cleaned up. Right-click anywhere in the All
Programs menu and then click Sort by name. Folders are moved to the top
of the menu and sorted, followed by individual menu items. You need to do
this for each subsequent level of the Start menu; sadly the sort feature isn’t
recursive, so it won’t work its way through the levels of the Start menu orga-
nizing your icons for you.
Hack
The best way to clean up clutter is to prevent it. When asked for a folder for the pro-
gram icons during Setup you can type in any location, such as \Programs\Fun Stuff\.
This makes it easier to categorize your applications to match the way you work.
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