Tips & Tricks

Start Menu Folders

Are you met by mountains of software when you hit your Programs menu (Start button, Programs)? If so, why not place additional folders in your Start Menu?

You could make categories for your programs with these folders so you don't have to do so much hunting around. For instance, you could have a category for office-type apps, one for games, and one for internet. The possibilities are endless.

Now, before we get too far, a special note for XP users - In order to use this tip under Win XP, you'll need to put your Start Menu into "classic" mode. It doesn't work in any way, shape, or form with the "standard" XP Start menu. To switch, just right-click the Start menu, Properties. Then select the "Classic Start menu" radio button from the resulting screen. Hit OK and you're all set.

Alright, now for how to actually add those little folders. For this example, we'll make a Games folder, but the procedure is identical for any other folder you want to stick on the Start menu.

1. Right-click the Start button, Explore. This should open Windows Explorer with focus on the Start menu.

2. Now, right-click a blank area in the right-hand pane and select New, Folder. Name the folder Games (or whatever you want).

3 Now you need to move your games from the Programs folder into the Games folder. There's a couple ways to do this. XP users will probably find method 2 below is their best bet. XP doesn't seem to show all the program groups in Explorer for some reason.

Method 1- Moving Via Windows Explorer

With Windows Explorer still open from the previous step -

Expand the Programs folder in the left pane (it's in the Start Menu folder) by clicking the little plus sign.

Locate your game program groups (assuming you've installed some games ;-) from that list and drag them to the games folder.

Method 2 - Moving Via the Start Menu

Click your Start button and you should see your new "Games" folder / menu, just sitting there waiting for you to drop some games into it.

To do so, hit your Programs menu, then drag the little icon for the program group you want into the new Games folder. Note that you can't drop the program onto the folder itself (that just adds it to the Start menu), you need to drop it into the sub-menu part.

Grab the group with your mouse:

Then drag & drop to the sub menu:

Note that with either method above, you can drag shortcuts to this folder if you like. If you're a little unsure of this drag & drop thing, head to the link below for a refresher:

http://www.worldstart.com/tips/computer-terms/termdraganddrop.htm

That's it! Click your Start button and you'll see the new Games folder listed. Click the folder and you'll have access to any program groups or shortcuts you've put in it.

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