ANN: Classic Shell - start menu and other features

I have classic shell v2 on win7 x 64. However not all installed programmes are showing in the programs menu. Is there a way to make classic shell show all installed programmes?

Yes and No.

The start menu shows the contents of the Start Menu folders and that's it. Some applications add themselves there during install and others don't. Also some applications are in the start menu, but were never installed (Notepad for example). Since "Start Menu" is just a folder on disk, you can add/remove shortcuts there as you wish.

So while the start menu can't show you all installed programs automatically, you can add them there manually.

Ivo said:

Yes and No.

The start menu shows the contents of the Start Menu folders and that's it. Some applications add themselves there during install and others don't. Also some applications are in the start menu, but were never installed (Notepad for example). Since "Start Menu" is just a folder on disk, you can add/remove shortcuts there as you wish.

So while the start menu can't show you all installed programs automatically, you can add them there manually.

How do I do that? An example is: I also have 2 games installed (bf2 and bfbc2) Yet only bf2 shows in the prog menu. How do I add the other to the menu?
Even Classic shell does not show up in the menu.
Thanks for your reply.

This is most likely because BFBC2 is a much newer game and registers itself into the Game Explorer instead of the Start Menu.

There are two ways to put it in the start menu:
1) Right-click on the start button and pick "Open". This will open the start menu folder in Explorer. Decide where you want to place the new shortcut - in the main folder, in Programs\Games, or make a new folder just for it. Then locate the EXE of the game and make a shortcut to it in the selected folder.

2) You can drag the Games folder from the Windows menu into the classic start menu. Go to the Windows menu and make sure the "Games" is enabled and is displayed as a menu. Open the Windows menu and grab the Games item and drag it away. While dragging, open the classic menu and drop the Games item there.

P.S. The next version of Classic Shell will add things to the start menu.

Thank you for the help. I will wait for the next version. The reason I want all programmes to be listed in the start menu is because I want to access all the applications that are in the particular folder ie: when I go to BF2 it will open a submenu showing all the applications relevant to this game such as the game itself, uninstall, update, etc.

MS really screwed up on Win 7 UI. They reinvented the wheel just to make it look different but they ended up with a square wheel that is only good for parking without a handbrake.

What you are asking for is simply not possible. There is no way to detect which files are important enough to show in the start menu. It is the installer's responsibility to create a folder in the start menu and add the appropriate shortcuts there. If it doesn't do it, you will have to do this yourself. In this case you will have to make a folder for BFBC2, add a link for the main EXE, uninstall, and whatever else you want.

What I meant to say about Classic Shell adding things to the start menu, is that it will add its own shorcuts (like Help and Settings). It will not do that for other software you have installed.

Ivo, thank you for the great program!

One possible error to report. I have changed the icon of the control panel (Control Panel - Change Default Icon), but the icon remains unchanged in the classic start menu. Is there another registry value that needs to be changed? Thanks again!

The Control Panel in the start menu uses icon 137 from shell32.dll. You can change that by editing the StartMenuItems.ini file. First make sure you remove the semicolon from the MAIN_MENU.Items near the top of the file. Then find the line CONTROL_PANEL.Icon=... , remove the semicolon from it, and change the value of the property to whatever icon you want to use.

It worked, quick and easy, I didn't even need to reboot. Thank you! :)

There's only one other suggestion I can think of, which has to do with the Shut Down button. On Vista, Shut Down opened the box to pick from a list with Shut Down, Sleep, Restart, etc. In 7, it has the button Shut Down, which shuts down with a single click, and then on the side, it has that extra button to choose if we need something else. The one click shut down is the only thing I liked about the new start menu, because it saved time. Would it be possibly to add that function to the classic start menu?

Thanks again!