Windows 7 - Start Menu - Customize

Hi Brink,

No, this doesn't quite do what I want. It does get me part-way there, in that I can end up with a "second start menu", labeled in text, that I can use to store my hierarchy of links.

But it doesn't get me keyboard/hot key access to that list--and that is my primary desire. Microsoft seems to ignore people who use the keyboard to do things, in that, e.g., going from one version of Word to another, the menus all change (or disappear entirely in recent versions, so now we have only icons and no keyboard shortcuts to menus at all--and no, I don't want to memorize arbitrary keypresses for 100 different options, I just want to navigate the menus using the keyboard). It's frustrating to power users--makes me not want to upgrade a Microsoft app ever again. I'm certainly not using the new version of Word voluntarily. Heck, if I wanted to use an OS that ignored keyboard users, I'd just switch to Mac.

Anyone else have any ideas? Or do I need to write an app to avoid this usability failure in Windows 7?

Tim

Tim,

No, you will not be able to use the Windows Key + (0-9) shortcut keys on that. Only the first 10 pinned taskbar icons can use them.


For shortcuts in the pinned folder, you could add your own keyboard shortcut to them though.

Another alternative, is to use a program like the Vista Start Menu one.

Brink, I have the same issue as in post 7 only with My Music. I have checked the group policy and they are all not configured. Got a registry fix for this one too?

Thanks

Hello ATLTypeS, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Sure thing. Here you go.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

That didn't seem to help, i still cant manage that option in the customize start menu...strange....another strange thing is that I cant seem to add anything to the windows explorer favorites. I noticed everything is ok in my off domain profile, I think I'm gonna delete me profile and let it rebuild on Monday.

Thanks for the help anyway Brink.

You're welcome ATLTypeS. Please let us know how it went for you on this.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to report that rebuilding the profile seems to have taken care of all my funky little issues.

Thanks for the help.

That's great news ATLTypeS. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted. Thank you for posting back with your results.

Updated tutorial to add OPTION TWO to be able to manually change the Customize Start Menu options in the registry.

Looks nice and clean! Personally I would be using the "2" value when going to modify the ones that will remain visible to be seen as folders. "0" for the others. That seems to work out the best rather then using links all the time.