Mike Southby

One of the first things ‘missing’ when I installed Windows 7 recently was the ability to customise the start menu to my tastes.  If like me you hate the way the standard windows components are laid out in a default installation you’ll know exactly what I mean.

One of the first things I usually do with a new installation is nest my menu items together into folders, normally scooping up all of the miscellaneous windows applications into a folder I cunningly call ‘Windows’ or in this case ‘Windows 7’.  I hate clutter and I like everything neatly organised.  This isn’t just a Windows problem of course, just install Adobe Creative Suite and you’ll have even more shortcuts in the wrong places, even though an Adobe folder is created by default, they choose to place some program shortcuts outside of this, annoying.

In previous incarnations of Windows it was easy, you simply right clicked the Start Menu and choose Open or Open All Users dependant on which sub area of the start menu you wanted to open in folder view.  With Windows 7 the option to do this has been removed.  It baffled me for an hour or 2 but I have now worked out how to do what I want, it’s simple really.  The option is still there but they have moved it.

So, all you need to do to click on the Start Menu and right click All Programs and you’ll be greeted with the familiar options!  Enjoy.

If you find this useful, feel free to leave a comment below.

UPDATE:

Curiously, this doesn’t work for Windows 7 64 bit.  So, to access the relevant folders (of course this also would work for 32 bit in place of the above steps) head to the Start Menu and Run and type the following commands:

shell:start menu or shell:common start menu