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you cant, it is a pre programmed hard coded location the OS determines where,

this program jsust hijacks it for your own purposes

there is a screenshot erlier that shows the DELL resourse center button, this link is programmed by MS into XP specificly for this OEM type of use

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hey gameguy.

i havent' yet had the chance to be able to use your application at the moment, but i will be doing so in a couple of days.

I am a oem system builder and i would like to know if theres a way to incorporate your program functions into windows, so once windows has installed on the computers your functions such as CustomerSupport will automatically be added into the start menu to save me time.

Looking forward to your reply.

Regards.

Gavin (PCUser) :happy:

  • 3 weeks later...
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Well I came here, hoping that SOMEHOW I could customize all the folders on the right side of the Start Menu, and hopefully add my own. What a shame you can't, due to sheer programming laziness. The only reason I ever wanted to customize them was for 2 reasons: the 'My Computer' menu only goes one level down (so you can't get down to any files, which is completely pointless when the 'My Documents' menu does exactly that) so I wanted to make a new shortcut that 'goes all the way', and also I wanted to add the 'History' menu (i.e. explorer/IE history) as a new item - you can achieve both in classic menu, why not in the 'new' version?

It's a BIG shame Microsoft spent so much time making the left side of the start menu (the 'programs' side) so customizable, then totally failed to make the right side ('folders' side) customizeable at all - all you can do is hide/show a few hard-coded locations such as My Music, My Pictures, etc. - a lot of people don't even USE My Music and My Pictures.

Ideally you should be able to add a folder link (using the standard 'Browse For Folder' common dialog), allow the user to cascade it (i.e. view its contents in a menu), and possibly even allow the user to turn on Personalized menus for the cascading menu (they spent so much time developing Personalized menus, only to all but drop them in XP when they are actually useful for folder menus like 'Favorites').

Look at the following reg key folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartMenu\StartPanel\

There are identical folders for "MyDocs", "MyPics", "MyMusic", etc. The framework is clearly in place for the user to add as many registry keys as he/she wants - all explorer.exe has to do is say "for each folder in the StartPanel reg group with these certain contents, make a link on the 'folders' pane". Microsoft were obviously too lazy to bother, and are still too lazy with Longhorn - the 'classic' start menu is still much more flexible than the new one, even 4 years after the release of XP!

Looking at the screenshots for Longhorn, it looks like they've done NOTHING to allow people to fully customize the Folders pane of the Start Menu. If I had the programming skill, I'd hack explorer.exe to allow it... but sadly, I can't. Maybe someone else can have a go, hopefully soon!

  • 4 weeks later...
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i know a lot of you have been waiting for this for a while, and it's finally done :D

it's finally done, after some procrastination on my part :blush: and a few long nights spent trying to figure out the email icon, i decided to remove it, because i can't get all the parts of it to work. :crazy:

also, it now needs SP1 for xp because a few problems could only be resolved by updating to SP1.  if you do need SP1, it will tell you and automatically open the SP1 webpage.

here it is, enjoy :woot:

Edit: Due to Neowin's conversion to IPB 2.0, the file was lost. I've re-uploaded it, so no need to worry :p 3324 downloads so far! :woot:

954677[/snapback]

Sory boys I am new and do not understand what does it do AND where to get it from. I would appreciate some help. MANY Thanks !!!

  • 1 month later...

Hey John,

how does the Start Panel Editor determine if KB820291 is installed?

I'm on MCE2005 which already has that update and SPE keeps telling me that I have to "Get Update for Extra Icon".

I already added all the Registry-Keys that are mentioned in the hotfix.inf, but still no luck.

  • 6 months later...

Well I came here, hoping that SOMEHOW I could customize all the folders on the right side of the Start Menu, and hopefully add my own. What a shame you can't, due to sheer programming laziness. The only reason I ever wanted to customize them was for 2 reasons: the 'My Computer' menu only goes one level down (so you can't get down to any files, which is completely pointless when the 'My Documents' menu does exactly that) so I wanted to make a new shortcut that 'goes all the way', and also I wanted to add the 'History' menu (i.e. explorer/IE history) as a new item - you can achieve both in classic menu, why not in the 'new' version?

It's a BIG shame Microsoft spent so much time making the left side of the start menu (the 'programs' side) so customizable, then totally failed to make the right side ('folders' side) customizeable at all - all you can do is hide/show a few hard-coded locations such as My Music, My Pictures, etc. - a lot of people don't even USE My Music and My Pictures.

Ideally you should be able to add a folder link (using the standard 'Browse For Folder' common dialog), allow the user to cascade it (i.e. view its contents in a menu), and possibly even allow the user to turn on Personalized menus for the cascading menu (they spent so much time developing Personalized menus, only to all but drop them in XP when they are actually useful for folder menus like 'Favorites').

Look at the following reg key folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartMenu\StartPanel\

There are identical folders for "MyDocs", "MyPics", "MyMusic", etc. The framework is clearly in place for the user to add as many registry keys as he/she wants - all explorer.exe has to do is say "for each folder in the StartPanel reg group with these certain contents, make a link on the 'folders' pane". Microsoft were obviously too lazy to bother, and are still too lazy with Longhorn - the 'classic' start menu is still much more flexible than the new one, even 4 years after the release of XP!

Looking at the screenshots for Longhorn, it looks like they've done NOTHING to allow people to fully customize the Folders pane of the Start Menu. If I had the programming skill, I'd hack explorer.exe to allow it... but sadly, I can't. Maybe someone else can have a go, hopefully soon!

Fully agree with you, sir. :yes:

  • 3 months later...

Is it possible to change the "Control Panel" and "Set Program Access and Defaults" item?

Control Panel? Maybe, but I don't know how, and this program doesn't bother with it.

Set Program Access and Defaults? Yes, but now that SP2 is released and includes that button, the code for that button doesn't work right.

Unfortunately, I've stopped program development for Start Panel Editor, and I've moved on to bigger (and more interesting) projects. Not to mention I have a rather full life now - I didn't when I wrote this program :p

  • 3 months later...

Glad you have a life, but this program made my life easier for about 10-20 clicks in an hour so I guess you were able to make the world better even then :p

How can I make the OEM icon to open a folder, I have made it before but I dont remember now, cannot select folders or lnk files...

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