Remove Programs from Start Menu

[ozgeek]

Hi all, here's a picture of my current start menu. I would like to remove Programs from this list. How would I go about doing that? I will need "Run" so I will leave that in. Shut Down is fine too.

[Puggsley]

Try deleting the "Programs" folder from C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Start Menu\". Chances are though it won't let you delete it or windows will recreate it when you restart your computer

[ozgeek]

Nup, it gives me this when I try to delete it:

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

Delete

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

Programs is a Windows system folder and is required for Windows to run properly. It cannot be deleted.

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

OK

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

[Puggsley]

Thought it would!

There might be a registry hack but i can't find one

[ozgeek]

I was going to wait to see if anyone would say "take a screenshot of the message instead of typing it out" but I wouldn't resist giving out a trick:

When you get any kind of message, error, warning or any kind of messages, click on the titlebar and press CTRL-C. Open any program that accept text like word, notepad or web browser and press CTRL V. This saves you memory and bandwidth. I really hope people would do this more to help Neowin save bandwidth.

[_dandy_]

I would normally ask the *reason* you want to remove the Programs folder from the start menu to begin with (because it's a highly unusual--and ineffective--way of prevent someone from running applications, but judging from your screenshot, it looks to me the reason is that you already have everything migrated "one level above", and so it's now pointless to keep around.

I tried playing with file attributes--hiding a folder (attrib -h [foldername]) keeps it from showing in the start menu, but I couldn't get it to work with the Programs folder itself--only its child folders. Even if it did work, one thing to keep in mind is that you'd have to do with both for the current user and the 'All Users' folder (that is, both folders would have to have the hidden attribute to keep it hidden).

The only alternative I can think of is to look at Group Policies (gpedit.msc). It wouldn't surprise me if there was something in there to do this.

[Puggsley]

I,ve looked at group policies and found a way to remove the "All Programs" form the XP Style Start Menu but not from the classic menu

[thecableguy]

Open explorer.exe in Reshacker.

Go to menu > 204 > 1033 and remove the text:

POPUP "&Programs", 504, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED, 0
{
	MENUITEM "(Empty)	", 513, MFT_STRING, MFS_GRAYED
}

then save explorer. If explorer doesn't want to save, use Replacer to replace it.

[Jon Paul]

The software WinPatrol has a free and a paid version that will remove ,delay or disable programs that are in startup

I use WinPatrol

http://www.winpatrol.com/

http://www.winpatrol.com/

[ozgeek]

Open explorer.exe in Reshacker.

Go to menu > 204 > 1033 and remove the text:

POPUP "&Programs", 504, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED, 0
{
	MENUITEM "(Empty)	", 513, MFT_STRING, MFS_GRAYED
}

then save explorer. If explorer doesn't want to save, use Replacer to replace it.

Thanks that did the trick actually I used what seems to be a better resource editer: Resource Editor

Jon Paul, I meant to remove the "Programs" entry from the Start Menu not the programs in it. I already have the programs in catergies at the top of the start menu

[_dandy_]

Thanks that did the trick actually I used what seems to be a better resource editer: Resource Editor

Won't you have to re-do that every time a hotfix replaces explorer.exe?

Besides, from my perspective, it's only dumb luck a hack like this works at all. I mean, some code within explorer.exe will try to access the string resource, fail (because it doesn't exist anymore), and...then what? Apparently since it appears to "work", all it does is fail silently and carry on, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were other ramifications you're not seeing. Only someone with the source code can tell whether that's safe or not.

[filter04]

hmm, is there some kind of list of the numbers that menu items link to? for instance, i want to have a Hibernate button, rather than a shutdown one.

[Hardbee]

ozgeek How did you remove search and settings folder ?

Edited January 27, 2007 by Hardbee

[ozgeek]

gpedit.msc > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar

_dandy_ like what programs do I use that need that specific instructions? I have done this before and I have never encountered any programs that would break after I modify explorer.exe, infact I've left explorer.exe alone and worked on a copy of it. You can tell Windows which shell file to use so I told mine to use explorer2.exe and it's been days since I performed this tweak I was asking for here in this thread. No issues at all :)

[Blazkowicz]

you can also remove the separators if you didn't do it, at that point they're not much needed anymore :)