How do I customize my Windows Startup menu?

Posted May 18, 2005

This was the question I had the other day when I was looking to rename some of my menus. By default, Windows has a strategy for organizing and naming all of your startup menus depending on the programs that are installed. After awhile you get a mess of unorganizing programs, and I found the following tip to be really helpful.

I like things alphabetized, because that helps me find things faster. In your startup menu, you can actually click, drag, and hold down a menu and drag it to another place to organize it how you like. So here are your steps;

1. Turn on your computer.

2. Click on the “Start” button.

3. Roll your mouse over “All Programs”.

4. Click and hold down on one of the program sections like the image below is demonstrating.

5. Drag the section to a new area. A thin black bar will indicate where you can drop the section, usually between two others.

Rothe Blog Windows Menu Organize

Customizing the start menu.

Now, to customize the start menu to have the programs or shortcuts that you want, follow the first two steps above.

3. Right Click on the “Start” button. Choose “Open All Users“.

4. Double Click on the folder called “Programs“. You should have this folder, but if you don’t, try any folder that you see.

Rothe Blog Windows Menu Users

5. These folders correspond to what is in your “All Programs” list. You can now add, delete, or change the links and names of any of these programs to best suit your needs.

What I was looking to do was add a shortcut to the list. In order to do that, these are the steps. It is just like making a shortcut normally, telling a link to point to where the program actually is located.

1. Click on “New” and Choose “Shortcut“.

Rothe Blog Make Shortcut

2. Click on “Browse” and then look for the program that you want to link to. Usually it will be located used My Computer > Local Disk C: > Program Files > (Program Name) > (Program).exe. It will almost always be an .exe or executable file, the file that runs the program.

3. Your shortcut is done. Drag it into the folder you want inside “Programs“, make a new folder, or just leave it where it is.

4. Click “Start” > “All Programs” and you should now see your new shortcut in the list.

I hope this was helpful.