The new Start panel includes a neat little feature that will keep track of all of the programs that you run and will place the most frequently run programs directly on the Start panel. I use this list of programs on the Start panel even more often than I use the All Programs pop-up menu because it is just much faster. One way that I like to customize my Start panel is to decrease the size of the icons on the left so that you can fit more icons on the screen.
This way, more frequently run programs can be displayed. Figure 2-6 shows the difference between a Start panel that has been switched to use small icons compared to the normal Start panel.
FIGURE2-4: How to view Start Menu properties by right-clicking the Start button.
Table 2-2 Start Panel Features
Feature Description
Control Panel By default, the Control Panel shortcut is shown and is selected to Display As A Link. I like selecting the Display As A Menu option, because it turns on the auto-expanding menu feature that displays all of the Control Panel applets without even having to open up the Control Panel. Doing so saves me a lot of time and is well worth it. If you do not want the Control Panel to be displayed, just click the Don’t Display This Item option Help and Support There’s not a lot that you can do with this one. If you use Help
and Support frequently, let this one be; otherwise, uncheck it to free up some space on your Start panel
My Computer The My Computer icon is one of the best candidates to enable the Display as a Menu feature so that it automatically expands to show you all of your drives. If you do not have any drives on your computer, feel free to disable the My Computer icon by selecting Don’t Display This Item
My Documents By default, the My Documents shortcut is displayed just as a link. I suggest that you leave this feature set this way if you have a lot of documents in your My Documents folder. Enabling the Display As A Menu option when you have a lot of
documents is just not worth it, because it gets so hard to find what you want. If you do not like the My Documents menu on the Start panel, just click the Don’t Display This Item option My Music The My Music folder is great, but most of us that have music
on our computers have a lot more than just a few songs. I recommend that you leave this one alone as well, because enabling the Display As A Menu feature is counterproductive when you have more than a few songs. If you are like me and do not use the My Music folder, then click the Don’t Display This Item option and you will have made some more room on your Start panel
My Network Places This is the icon that you can use to browse your local area network if your computer is on any type of local area network (LAN). If you want to connect to a remote computer to view their shared files, you will want to have this option selected. If you do not have a network card, and just use a modem, then I suggest that you uncheck this item because you will never use it My Pictures My Pictures is a nice link if you use the My Pictures folder to
store your photos. But forget about enabling Display As A Menu on this one. Doing so will just give you a list of file names. With today’s digital cameras’ number schemes, you will never find the
Changing the icons is very easy. You just need to change one setting within the Start Menu properties. To do so, follow these steps:
1.Move your mouse over the Start button and right-click it with your mouse and then click Properties.
2.This will bring up the Start Menu Properties menu that you used in the last section.
Here, you will want to click the Customize button.
3.On the General tab, you will see two options under Select An Icon Size For Programs.
This is where you can change the icon size. Select Small Icons and then click OK.
4.Click OK once more and you are finished.
Now you will have made some more room so that you can display more frequently run pro-grams on the Start panel. When you click the Start Menu, you may notice that there aren’t any
Feature Description
photo you want unless you can see a thumbnail. If you don’t use the My Pictures folder, click Don’t Display This Item and the shortcut will be removed
Network Connections The Network Connections item can be very useful. If you have a dialup connection or even if you have a network adapter and are on a LAN, the network connection shortcut, when set to Display As A Menu, will allow you to easily access all of your connections to view and set properties as well as connect right from the Start panel
Printers and Faxes No Printer? Uncheck this box
Run Command I recommend that you leave this box checked, as you will be using this button in various directions throughout this book Search Search for files a lot? If not, get rid of this shortcut to save
yourself some room
Set Program Access and Defaults You all probably know about Microsoft’s antitrust problems with the government. Part of their settlement required Microsoft to provide users an easy way to switch between default applications on their computers such as the default Web browser and Mail Client. This shortcut is useful, but it does not deserve to be on your Start panel. Uncheck this box to free up some room. You can access this feature later from within the Add and Remove Programs Control Panel applet
System Administrative Tools The System Admin tools are the most useful tools besides the Control Panel. I highly recommend that you include this item on your Start panel in both the All Programs menu and the Start Menu by selecting the middle, all-inclusive option
more programs showing up. That is because you also have to adjust the number of programs that will appear. The next section will show you how to adjust how many program shortcuts are