How to Clean Up Your Windows 7 Start Menu

How to Clean Up Your Windows 7 Start Menu

Has your Windows 7 Start menu become too disorganized? Then let’s organize it.

Your Windows 7 Start menu can get messy. The more applications you install, the more folders and shortcuts that squeeze into the menu. At some point, the menu just becomes too crowded and cluttered to easily navigate.

Can you clean up and streamline the Windows 7 Start menu so it’s better organized? Yep, you can, and you have a couple of options:

• You can access the menu directly to move or delete shortcuts and rename folders.
• You can tap into your Start menu Programs folder from Windows Explorer.
• You can create and delete folders and more easily move shortcuts from one folder to another.

Let’s see how we can clean up your Start menu. But before we do, a look at how the Windows 7 Start menu gets so disorganized.

Every application you install sets up its own shortcut and in many cases its own folder, even if to store just a single shortcut. As you install more and more applications, your menu gets filled with more and more shortcuts and folders, sometimes with names that don’t have much meaning. For example, a Start menu folder may adopt the name of the company that created the software rather than the software itself, making it difficult to find and launch the program. You then must hunt for specific applications, defeating the whole purpose of having a simple and basic menu in the first place.

Let’s look at a Windows 7 Start menu run amuck. As you can see in the screenshot below, almost every application I installed created a folder for itself off the Start menu, some with names that aren’t easily recognizable. To use this Start menu, I’d have to search for the location of each program I want to launch, trying to figure out if it’s stored as an individual shortcut off the Start menu or hidden in some folder. And if the folder name doesn’t match up with the name of the program, I’d have to guess which folder is home to that program.

Okay, let’s get down to the business of cleaning up the Start menu. Your goals in organizing your Start menu are to reduce the number of folders, move similar programs into the same folders, and get rid of shortcuts you don’t need, such as readme or help files. Let’s first try this by directly accessing the Start menu itself.

Click on the Start button and then click on or hover over the link for All Programs. You’ll see all the folders and shortcuts in your Start menu. One action you can take is to rename a folder. Pick a folder that has a different name than the application itself. Right-click on the folder. From the popup menu, click on the Rename command. Type the new name in the same field as the existing name and then press Enter. The folder is christened with the new name.

You can also rename an individual shortcut whether it’s resting by itself off the Start menu or is stored in a folder. Right-click on a shortcut that you wish to rename, select Rename from the popup menu, type the new name, and then press Enter.

Another option is to delete a shortcut or even an entire folder. For example, the folder for Java contains a help file among other shortcuts. If you have Java and don’t want that shortcut, right-click on it. From the popup menu, click on the Delete command. Click Yes to confirm the deletion, and the shortcut is gone. Even further, maybe you don’t want the folder for Java in the Start menu at all. Certainly, you want to tread carefully if you choose to delete an entire folder. Yes, you can restore the folder from the Recycle Bin if you change your mind. You may even be able to recreate the shortcuts for the folder from the program’s home folder. But you still want to be sure you won’t need the folder. If not, right-click on the folder, click on the Delete command, and confirm the deletion.

Next, maybe you want to move shortcuts from one folder to another. Let’s say you have iTunes and you’ve renamed the iTunes folder to Entertainment and want to store all your entertainment-related programs in that folder. Pick another entertainment-related shortcut, such as Windows Media Player. Right-click on it and select Cut from the popup menu. Right-click on the Entertainment folder and select Paste from the menu. Open the Entertainment folder, and the shortcut for Media Player is now there.

Okay, trying to organize your Start menu directly from the menu itself is feasible but limited. The process of renaming and moving items is slow and kludgy. Plus, you can’t create new folders from the Start menu, which limits your ability to truly organize it. So, let’s try a different approach by doing all this in Windows Explorer.

Click on the Start menu and right-click on the All Programs link. Click on the Open command. A Windows Explorer window opens pointing to all the shortcuts for programs installed for your individual user account. Move this window to the left of the screen. Resize it if necessary. Right-click on the All Programs link again and this time click on the Open All Users command. Windows Explorer opens another window, this time pointing to shortcuts for the programs installed for all users. Move this window to the right of the screen and resize it if needed. Organize the two windows so they’re resting side by side.

The first thing we’re going to do is combine the two separate Programs folders to make it easier to organize the menu. Right-click on the Programs folder in the first window and click on the Cut command from the popup menu. Then right-click in the other window and click on the Paste command.

Windows tells you the destination already contains a folder named Programs. Click Yes to merge the folder. Click Continue when asked to provide administrator permission. You can now close the first window and maximize the remaining window. Double-click on the Programs folder, and you’ll see all your Start menu program folders and shortcuts.

Let’s say you want to create a new folder to store all your web browsers. Right-click on any empty area, move your cursor to the New command, and select Folder. Name the folder Web Browsers. Now go through the Programs folder and look for the shortcuts for your web browsers. Right-click on each of them and then click on the Cut command. Right-click on the Web Browsers folder and click on the Paste command. After you’re done, all your web browsers will be in that single folder.

Now it’s a matter of working in Windows Explorer to create or rename folders and subfolders, move similar shortcuts into each folder, delete the old folders, and remove shortcuts you don’t need. Ultimately, by paring down the number of folders and moving similar shortcuts into their own folders, you should find the Windows 7 Start menu more manageable and easier to navigate.

How to See If You're Ready for Windows 10, Version 1703

While Microsoft is preparing the next update to Windows 10, you might want to see if your current machine is ready for Version 1703, also known as the Creators Update.

Downloading the ISO

The first step to check to see if your machine is ready for theCreators Update is to actually download the ISO onto your computer or flash drive. It’s relatively easy to download the ISO:

1. First off go to the web page and click on download tool now to install the download tool on your computer.
2. Once it’s installed, accepted the end user license agreement and then choose to create installation media.
3. You can then choose to prepare a usb flash drive or an ISO. Once the ISO is downloaded, click on it to mount the iso.

Now comes the fun part where we run a routine to test the install before actually installing the Creators Update.

1. Browse to the drive letter that the iso has been mounted at. In my case it mounted as an E: drive.
2. To check to see if your system is ready for 1703, launch a command prompt and type in setup.exe /Compat scanonly. Note this will not install Windows 10 1703, merely check to see if there is any issues anticipated.
3. You will then need to review the log files located at $Windows.~BT>sources>Panther and specifically look at setuperr.log.

On one computer I have, it appears to be having issues with the Arcsoft connect driver. In the log file it states that “Failed hashing for syswow64driversafc.sys, 0x80070003 “. I found the Arcsoft software in programs and features and uninstalled the software and rebooted my pc. I then tried the scanning process again to make sure my system is ready for 1703 Windows 10.

I’ll be the first to admit that this process is a bit cryptic and the log file process less than ideal. It would be much better if a graphical error message gave a much clearer reason why the Creators Update isn’t ready for your machine rather than relying on telemetry and Microsoft to determine when your pc is ready.

Another trick I’ll recommend to use if you are wanting to ensure your machine is ready for the Creators Update is to use the Windows update troubleshooter tool to check on the Windows update and ensure it’s ready to go.

In fact if you are having issues getting the Creators Update installed via Windows update, you might want to try using the ISO/download method from the web page instead of waiting for Windows update to take its course.

Lack of Space in Reserved Partitions

Another issue I’ve seen still plaguing Windows 10 is a lack of space in the system reserved paritions as set by the Original Equipment manufacturers. In order to solve this problem, follow KB3086249 and use a third party partition tool to adjust the space in the reserved partitions so that theCreators Update will install.

A poster on the www.patchmanagement.org listserve reported that he followed the “Windows 7 or 8/8.1 with GPT partition instructions to delete the un-needed language-specific fonts” and the install completed. It’s my understanding that Original equipment manufacturers are now creating the partitions correctly, but it’s a concern that this occurred in the first place.

Is Your Antivirus Ready?

The next issue I’ve been tracking in regards to the Creators Update release is the impact of antivirus support and this release.

I’ve personally helped a few computer users with various slow down issues that have been fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling antivirus.

So it would be very wise to check out your antivirus support of the Creators Update. I’ve been surprised at times with how many vendors are only now releasing updates to work with the Creators Update. Case in point is Trend Micro who is still in the process, as documented on their website of the updates to their various antivirus platforms. In fact, Vulnerability Protection, Version 2.0 SP2 Patch 3 is due to be released mid June.

Malwarebytes is another antivirus vendor that had to receive an update to fix issues with Office 2013 and 2016 after the release of the Creators Update. While the issue is now fixed as noted in this Microsoft office web page, it’s another sign that even vendors that work with Microsoft can need updates to get their programs to work with normal Office and Windows products.

This may sound extreme, but you may want to uninstall your antivirus and plan on reinstalling it after the Creators Update is installed on your computer. The recent upgrades in antivirus that has been included to better protect you from ransomware, often causes side effect when major updates are involved.

Tracking Known Issues

I’ve been keeping an unofficial list of some of the side effects I’ve seen with the Creators Update. But even with tracking those issues, there are some that I’ve missed and have already been fixed with recent Windows 10 updates. As noted in the Kimberj blog. In this case, the Group Policy setting “Forces a specific default lock screen image” did not work for new or existing users. The Creators Update release received an update on May 25th in the form of KB4020102 that fixed the following issues in addition to the group policy bug noted above:

 

• Addressed issue where NTLM fails to generate a challenge response when CredGuard is enabled, NTLMv2 is used, and no target information is provided by the server.
• Addressed issue where Internet Explorer does not respect the “Send all sites not included in the Enterprise Mode Site List to Microsoft Edge” policy when opening favorites.
• Addressed issue in Internet Explorer 11 where a non-administrator user is not able to install an ActiveX control.
• Addressed issue where, after starting Split View, some apps (Microsoft Edge, Hub, Cortana, etc.) no longer receive input when multiple displays are in use.
• Addressed issue with an unnecessary scrollbar in the logon credential provider dialog, which may block use of other fields when the dialog has multiple fields.
• Addressed issue where, during a VM reset, the VM goes into Second Level Paging (SLP) even if there is enough balancer available memory on the host.
• Addressed issue where some non-Unicode fonts (Courier, MS Sans Serif, etc.) do not render characters correctly on non-Latin, single-byte system locales (Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). Black bars or other artifacts appear instead.
• Addressed issue with an SMS/messaging app that stops working when attempting to delete messages.
• Addressed issue where, after installing the Creators Update, audio output through external decoders no longer works.
• Addressed issue where the IoT shell fails to keep monitored background applications running.
• Addressed issue with high latency when using the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) MIDI API.
• Addressed issue where PrintBRM fails to restore the Print Queue Configurations when printer names are identical and a port is set to FILE:.
• Addressed issue with per user proxy settings not migrating to machine proxy settings.
• Addressed issue where non-English characters showed incorrectly in apps that attempt to wrap/replace the in-box console.

 

Any update you receive at the end of the month to the 1703 release will be fixing issues reported and noted and do not include any new security patches.

The bottom line: If you haven’t yet received the 1703 release, there may be several reasons why. So review your antivirus protection, then run a test scan of your system to see if you can determine why you haven’t received 1703 yet. It’s also perfectly fine to be patient and let Microsoft release it to your system when they finally deem in appropriate to do so.

I you wanted to plan on when you want to do the upgrade, remember that you can always visit the web page to trigger the upgrade process at a time convenient for you instead of Microsoft’s release schedule.