Late Night PC Service

Rearrange the Start Menu to suit your needs

When you click the Start button, you get a menu that lists many of the applications on your computer. This gives you an easy way to get in to any program, but did you know that you can decide which applications are shown in the Start Menu and where they are shown? It's not hard to do, just follow the directions here.

Normally when you click the Start Menu, you click on it with the left mouse button. To customize your start menu, all you have to do is click with the right mouse button, then choose "Explore" from the menu that appears. Windows Explorer will open and show you all the programs and submenus on the Start Menu. Submenus are shown as folders and the menu items are all just shortcuts to the real programs, so you can do anything with them that you would with any other shortcut, such as those on the desktop. If there's a program that you don't want on the start menu, just find it in the explorer window and delete it. You can do the same thing with submenus by deleting the folder with the same name as the submenu you want to get rid of. If you accidentally delete something that you shouldn't have, it stays in the Recycle Bin on your desktop so you can get it back.

Putting the Start Menu in Alphabetical order

If your Start Menu has become cluttered and disordered, you can easily put all the shortcuts back in alphabetical order. Just click the Start button then go to "All Programs" as usual but instead of clicking on an application right-click on an item in the folder you want to sort. A context menu will appear and you'll see an item that reads "Sort by Name." Click "Sort by Name" to alphabetize the items in menu you're looking at.