Tech Tip

TECH TIP: The Start Menu – Part 2, Classic View
When you right-click on the Start Menu (lower left hand corner of your screen) and select Properties, you have two choices. If you have Microsaoft XP, you can view the Start Menu in Classic View or you can view the Start Menu in the new XP look.

If you have an earlier version of Windows, you can use this tip to customize your Start Menu. If you have XP, you have a choice between Classic Start menu or the new XP Start Menu. Whether you choose Classic Start menu or Start menu, they both do very similar things – they just look different The Classic Start menu looks just like the Start menu in Windows 95, 98, ME, and 2000. At lot of people liked it so Microsoft decided to give you the option to keep it. It uses less space and is less complicated than the new XP Start Menu

Well, let’s look at Classic Start Menu first.

Right Click on Start menu and select Classic Start menu.
Click on Customize.
At the bottom of this window, you have several check boxes. Click on the options you want to display or enable. OK – I will tell you what I have checked – these are the good ones.
Display Favorites – very nice – it displays all your favorites from Internet Explorer so you can jump right to any site you have bookmarked as a Favorite.
Display Run – Well, you may have to use this occasionally – so check it.
Enable Dragging and Dropping – you can create shortcuts with this enabled
Expand – there are a bunch of these. I just expand everything except Network Connections. With everything checked, the folders expand so you can easily find applications, documents or files.
Show Small Icons in Start Menu – definitely – takes much less room on your screen.

So – don’t check Use Personalized Menus – unless you like the hassle of having to dig for the programs or files you want to open.

Don’t check Programs – unless you want to have to scroll to find things in the start menu.

The other options at the top of the window

Click on Add or Remove to add items to the Start Menu
Click on Advanced and get an Explorer window where you can move things in and out of the Start Menu
Click on Sort to alphabetize the items in the start menu
Click on Clear to clear out all the recently accessed documents

Try some if these options the Classic Start menu - you may like it. Remember, you can always go back to the XP Start Menu.

Next time we will cover the new XP Start Menu