Can we tweak entries in All Apps display?

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Some of the apps I’ve installed have a large number of options, none of which I need or want in the alphabetical listing of the All Apps part of the Start Menu. When I click on the app’s name, I get the little down karat to click and then the many options appear. Way down on the bottom is the actual exe file. which is all I need. I’d prefer not to scroll down to get it. It would seem that the app’s shortcut is in a folder and those options are files in that folder.

(I don’t use this app enough to put it in the taskbar, but when I’m buzzing along and need it, it’s annoying to have to click again and then scroll to get it.}

I found the Start Menu in the Windows folder, but the All Apps programs aren’t listed there.

How does one get into the correct folder, delete the unwanted options, and make the task much simpler and cleaner?

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Tried that. Didn’t do it.

If you remember, back in XP, and with some finesse in 7, we could get into the Start Menu file system and move things, create and manipulate folders and modify as we liked.

This app (and a few others) in the All Apps list created a Start Menu entry as a folder, with a multitude of options in it. The only one I want to show is the .exe file. That means getting into the Start Menu and tweaking. My question is how do we do that in Win10?

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Tried that. Didn’t do it.

If you remember, back in XP, and with some finesse in 7, we could get into the Start Menu file system and move things, create and manipulate folders and modify as we liked.

This app (and a few others) in the All Apps list created a Start Menu entry as a folder, with a multitude of options in it. The only one I want to show is the .exe file. That means getting into the Start Menu and tweaking. My question is how do we do that in Win10?

Like you, I prefer to sort my start menu to move the miscellaneous ‘stuff’ out of the way, so only the main exes are showing (I’m still on XP). W10 only allows this to a limited degree. There are two places the W10 ‘all apps’ menu gets its info from (as with XP, but different places to keep us on our toes):

User: C:UsersAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu
all users: C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu

You can tweak these as you see fit, but I have found that any changes sometimes take a reboot or two to show up, and sometimes nested sub-folders just never appear. It seems to change with new builds. What you (or rather I) can’t do is easily remove all unwanted ‘apps’ (some just won’t uninstall), or even better consign them to a sub-folder of there own where they can fester away. I did manage in one build to actually remove some apps (I will never use) from the C: drive, but this left stubs in the ‘all apps’ menu which simply did nothing, so was not helpful.

I had been hoping since before Xmas that the start menu (huh!) would gradually improve, but in fact it has got worse. I am resigned to having to install one of the free/cheap ‘shell’ solutions that are available once the TP phase is over.

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I’m not holding out too much hope for ms to improve access to the start menu for tweaking/customizing. It seems they are moving to an apple m.o. of foisting unwanted apps upon all users, like the old Nike-iPod app and now the apple watch app – they fail to recognize a large portion, maybe even a majority, of users have no desire or need for those apps but they eliminate any means to remove them so they sit idle in some folder wasting space. It is no wonder that jailbreaking idevices has become so prevalent. I see the same future for MS if they continue on this path.

Fwiw, nothing I could find removed the “&” entry in all apps, however I managed to break the mail, calendar and people apps and lost my ability to log into the store. Tried a restore, it failed to fix, tried a reset, it failed to fix. Finally downloaded the 10130 ISO and did a clean reinstall. All apps start menu back with no broken or odd entries but there were a slew of broken “@microsoft.something.whatever” “dead” live tiles. Up pinning them cleaned out the start menu and none showed up in the all apps sidebar start menu. So finall yhave a clean install to continue to fiddle with.

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Tried that. Didn’t do it.

If you remember, back in XP, and with some finesse in 7, we could get into the Start Menu file system and move things, create and manipulate folders and modify as we liked.

This app (and a few others) in the All Apps list created a Start Menu entry as a folder, with a multitude of options in it. The only one I want to show is the .exe file. That means getting into the Start Menu and tweaking. My question is how do we do that in Win10?

Its me again: I forgot that I found a rather nifty work-around, posted by ‘try3’ here(5th reply to a deleted question, it seems). It works superbly, the menu levels fly out, and you only have to include what you need. It isn’t in the ‘usual’ place, but appears on the right of the task-bar, next to the ‘notification tray’. However, if that means I almost never have to go near that apology for a start menu over on the left, all the better. I don’t know how try3 came up with it (also works in W7, apparently: that has a busted start menu in that the menu items no longer fly out, but have to be clicked – it appears to have died with XP).

It seems staggering that 20 years ago MS came up with a brilliant (in my view) way of accessing wanted programs, allowing the user to define what ‘wanted’ means, and now they can’t seem to recognise the simplicity and functionality of their own work. I expect the W95 programmers are choking on their beer, watching this farago unfold.

HTH, Martin

PS Up to build 10074 at least, sub-folders in the ‘all apps’ list don’t work, and items just appear at the top folder level (if they appear at all).

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Check out C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks, Joe. I went there and was able to delete the unwanted files from the folders and then move the shortcuts I wanted to keep to the Program folder. It looked like the older Windows process, but when I closed it up and went to the All Apps list, none of the shortcuts to those apps were there. I have no idea how to get them to display in the All Apps list. I think there are menehune (Hawaiian elves) playing with me inside my machine.

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When I do as you suggest, the shortcut appears as a tile, but not in the All Apps list.

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Probably time to search the registry. I’m on build 10122 still can’t find a broken app entry that displays a “?” In the start menu all apps list. Cannot right click to remove it. I ignore it but it sits there at the top of the apps list as a glaring reminder Microsoft has a ways to go before this thing is ready to release. And yes, I have posted this in the preview feedback forum, along with others. Keeping fingers crossed we get some better start menu customization and repair tools soon. Meanwhile, I’ll be scouring the registry later to see if I can find something.

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I’ve had no better luck this week with 10125. Now 10130 is out; hopefully we’ll see some improvements there. It’s hard to believe that all will be ready for the scheduled release date: July 29.

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I’m on 10130 and it’s no better. I created a desktop shortcut so I could copy the text of the broken link to use to search the registry and deleted all the entries I found. I then searched my entire hard drive, deleted the files I found with the same text string. Rebooted and sure enough the broken entry is still in the start menu under the “&” character heading. Sadly it looks like MS is becoming more like Apple by force feeding us apps we cannot remove and hiding them so deep it is impossible to delete them.

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I’m on 10130 and it’s no better. I created a desktop shortcut so I could copy the text of the broken link to use to search the registry and deleted all the entries I found. I then searched my entire hard drive, deleted the files I found with the same text string. Rebooted and sure enough the broken entry is still in the start menu under the “&” character heading. Sadly it looks like MS is becoming more like Apple by force feeding us apps we cannot remove and hiding them so deep it is impossible to delete them.

What’s the text of the broken link?

What’s the actual entry that appears under the & heading?

Is there a shortcut containing that character at C:UsersyournameAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsApplication Shortcuts or C:UsersyournameAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms?

How to move or remove apps in All Apps in the Windows 10 start menu

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here is text of broken entry in start menu all apps under the “&” heading, its at the beginning of the start menu list, just before the “0-9” entries:
@{microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_17.5.9600.20689_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwems-resource–microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps-strings-peopleAppName}

The thing is I downloaded the communication apps which includes a new people app which is basically an address book and it is working fine, but apparently the old app link is still remaining.

Searched through the file folders but no sign of that entry. The only people app shortcut is for the new one.

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Tried to post actual txt in the link from my win 10 machine but the post appears to have been killed by a moderator! I deleted the items I found that had similar txt from bothappdata locations, the “&” link remains and is still broken and now my mail and calendars are broken! I think I’ll keep my win 7 machines as is, not seeing benefit of win 10, just appears to be deeply hidden crap making it a royal pain.

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Tried to post actual txt in the link from my win 10 machine but the post appears to have been killed by a moderator!

It had been automatically moderated as possible spam, probably due to the length of that shortcut string. I’ve approved it now so that it appears at#14.

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finally did a system reset and reinstalling the few apps I had. things look cleaner but now lots of apps are missing and lots of broken tiles showing microsoft.something.or.other.thats.missing. biggest issue I have is I can not login to the store – when I click on the sign in link, a window opens that flashes between a “just a moment” white screen with the blie rotating dots and then flashes a blank gray screen – only way to kill it is to click on the X in the upper right corner as is flashes between the two windows. this is odd since my acct login to my microsoft acct and the PC is fine.

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