Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Shareware, Freeware
Bring order to the XP, Vista start menu with Winstep Organize
by Lee Mathews Oct 20th 2008
While manually sorting your start menu using Explorer isn't the most annoying task confronting a Windows user, it's not all that fun, either.
Winstep Start Menu Organizer makes the process much simpler. Install it, fire it up, and you're presented with three panes to help sort things out easily: categories, items in the current category, and uncategorized items. Within about 20 seconds I managed to drag my folders into Winstep's default categories and streamline my previously chaotic menu.
Also included is a handy start menu backup and restore feature, which makes rolling back to your intial Windows default setup a painless procedure.
The free version does have some serious limitations: you can't create your own categories or subcategories, which could be a major inconvenience for some users. Still, the included default catgories are general enough to help just about anyone compact and bring order to their start menu quickly and easily.
[ via Life Rocks 2.0 ]
Do you already have a preferred app to tackle this task? Share it with other DS readers in the comments!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Votre said 9:37AM on 10-20-2008
IMHO - not enough "bang for the buck."
It's a shame such a critical feature as allowing a user to create their own categories and subcategories was disabled. I can understand they want people to buy the Pro version - but at $20US, that's a fairly expensive ticket for such a specialized "one trick" utility. Especially when you can, as was noted, do the same thing for free using Windows Explorer.
I guess you'll need to ask yourself if the convenience of having "three panes" is worth the money.
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Chad said 10:07AM on 10-20-2008
Lee, what visual style are you using in that screenshot?
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Lee Mathews said 10:09AM on 10-20-2008
It's a pack called Energize 2.0...gorgeous theme!
Google it, or watch for a writeup of it and my two other favorites this week.
Howard Pearce said 10:50AM on 10-20-2008
this is pretty useless without the means to create your own categories OR the ability to move sub-folders into the pre-defined categories (in case you have already organized your start menu somewhat).
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zkam said 11:01AM on 10-20-2008
I like the idea, but with the limitations described, this app seems pretty pointless. Also, it's not clear from the article whether the app makes any distinction between the "for All Users" and "for the Current User" sections of the start menu. Here's what I do:
1) Right-click start menu, choose "Explore"
2) Right-click start menu, choose "Explore All Users"
3) Move, rename, etc. items and folders between the two as needed
4) In Regedit, find the "MenuOrder" key, under "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" (I usually do a quick find for it). Delete it. This restores the Start menu items to alphabetical order, instead of having the most recently added items at the bottom of the menu. (You have to kill/restart explorer for the change to take effect).
There may be a setting somewhere to make the menu always alphabetical, but I prefer to do it myself from time to time just to cleanup, since it can be handy to see the newly installed items in regular day-to-day use.
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Jorge Coelho[Winstep] said 9:21PM on 10-20-2008
"I can understand they want people to buy the Pro version - but at $20US, that's a fairly expensive ticket for such a specialized "one trick" utility."
The 10 standard categories in the free version should be enough for most people. Others will find that the convenience and ease of use of the Pro version of the Organizer (versus having to fiddle with multiple Explorer windows, etc...) are well worth the $20 (come on, you can't even buy a decent meal these days for that kind of money).
Also, keep in mind this is the very first release of the Organizer and that purchasing the Pro version entitles you to free lifetime upgrades. This means that you will also get for FREE everything I am planning to add in future releases: organize Desktop icons, organize browser Favorites (IE's built-in Favorites organizer sucks big time), clean old Favorite URLs that now point to dead sites, etc...
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michael.shi said 8:05AM on 10-21-2008
Well, it is for Windows XP only.
Who needs this when you have start search in Vista?
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Dagur said 10:55AM on 10-21-2008
or launchy
Jorge Coelho[Winstep] said 11:40AM on 10-21-2008
Windows XP only? Start Menu Search? What are you guys talking about? lol
The Winstep Start Menu Organizer works with all Windows versions (from Win95 to Vista 32/64 bit) - and it has NOTHING to do with Windows Search or Launchy. :-)
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michael.shi said 8:22PM on 10-21-2008
You don't get it, do you?
With Launchy or Vista's quick start search funtion, who needs to re-organize the order of start menu?!
You don't even need to touch your mouse to load a program or a document!
See for yourself: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsexperience/archive/2008/07/30/demo-instant-search-in-windows-vista.aspx
Nic Moon said 12:57PM on 10-21-2008
SmOz anyone?
http://smoz.sourceforge.net/
Seems to have the exact same functionality the Pro version has without the fee. Works with XP and I'm pretty sure Vista.
Open Source for life!
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Ken said 9:25AM on 10-23-2008
I do it manually myself without needing to install any program.
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