Program File Organization

Is there a way to have the programs found in the "Start" section to be shown in alphabetical order? I notice that when viewing the files with Explorer they are in order but under the Start button they are not and it's a long scroll in a single collumn to find some of them. At least in Win95 the listing was multi-collumn.

 

Start, programs, right click, sort by name.

 

You can also implement the 95 scrolling version.

Copy/paste the following, excluding the dashed lines, into Notepad, and it as a REG file extension.
Then double click on it to add to your system.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Advanced\Folder\StartMenuScrollPrograms]
"Type "= "checkbox "
"Text "= "Multi-Column Start Menu "
"HKeyRoot "=dword:80000001
"RegPath "= "Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced "
"ValueName "= "StartMenuScrollPrograms "
"CheckedValue "=dword:00000000
"UncheckedValue "=dword:00000001
"DefaultValue "=dword:00000000
"HelpID "= "update.hlp "

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

It can be enabled/disabled from Explorer > Tools > Folder Options


The other thing you can do is to categorize these items. They are only shortcuts to the real programs, so they can be moved around.

From Explorer, browse to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs and create new folders for the categories. Such as Games, Graphics, Utilities, Tools, etc.

Then, drag and drop the shortcuts from their original locations into the appropriate category folders.

This will then make the Start > Programs selection substantially shorter.

 

Thanks aleekat, that was exactly what I was looking for!