How to Open the Start Menu Folder in Windows 7

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Are you one of those people that obsessively edits your start menu to keep it clean, tidy, and organized? Back in Windows XP, all you had to do was right-click on the start button to get to the folder, but Windows 7 changed it.

Now when you right-click on the Start Orb in Windows 7, you just get the generic “Open Windows Explorer”, which takes you to the Libraries view. Not what we wanted!

Yep, this one is so easy it hurts.

Just right-click on the “All Programs” button on the start menu, and choose Open to head to your personal user-specific start menu folder, or “Open All Users” to open up the system-wide Start Menu folder.

For the entire destructions w/screenshots and even more, go HERE.

This all works in Vista too.

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The Windows start menu is an ongoing pet peeve of mine. In Windows 7, M$ continues to place the start menu items in different folders. The term “all users” as used here is a lie. When I open the C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu, not all of my menu items are there. Some of them are under my username folder (C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms).

When installing programs, some of the menu items go to the user’s folder and some go into the ProgramData folder. There doesn’t seem to be any apparent reason for what is put where. Since I am the only user of my computer with only one user account, why wouldn’t all of the menu items go into the same place? At the very least, there should be some way to consolidate the two if desired, other that the manual method.

But there I go, trying to apply logic to Microsoft. I should know better by now. Sigh!

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The Windows start menu is an ongoing pet peeve of mine. In Windows 7, M$ continues to place the start menu items in different folders. The term “all users” as used here is a lie. When I open the C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu, not all of my menu items are there. Some of them are under my username folder (C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms).

When installing programs, some of the menu items go to the user’s folder and some go into the ProgramData folder. There doesn’t seem to be any apparent reason for what is put where. Since I am the only user of my computer with only one user account, why wouldn’t all of the menu items go into the same place? At the very least, there should be some way to consolidate the two if desired, other that the manual method.

But there I go, trying to apply logic to Microsoft. I should know better by now. Sigh!

Can’t blame MS for this one, at least not entirely. You should be dumping on the person who wrote the installer for the program.

That person has chosen to install the shortcut(s) in the All Users or the signed-on user’s directory. Why one was chosen over the other is often arbitrary.

A well behaved installer should give you the option to decide whether the shortcuts are installed in the All Users directory so that they are available to all users of that computer, or installed in your Start directory and then available only to you.

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Can’t blame MS for this one, at least not entirely. You should be dumping on the person who wrote the installer for the program.

That person has chosen to install the shortcut(s) in the All Users or the signed-on user’s directory. Why one was chosen over the other is often arbitrary.

A well behaved installer should give you the option to decide whether the shortcuts are installed in the All Users directory so that they are available to all users of that computer, or installed in your Start directory and then available only to you.

Yes but you can blame MS for placing sensitive shortcuts in “all users” menu instead of the “administrators” menu where they belong.
I refer to the security setting, administrative tools & such that should never be seen by a casual user. Administrator Rights may protect
some from being used but why place the temptation in front of them in the first place?
Sorry, just mumblin’

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The Windows start menu is an ongoing pet peeve of mine. In Windows 7, M$ continues to place the start menu items in different folders. The term “all users” as used here is a lie. When I open the C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu, not all of my menu items are there. Some of them are under my username folder (C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms).

When installing programs, some of the menu items go to the user’s folder and some go into the ProgramData folder. There doesn’t seem to be any apparent reason for what is put where. Since I am the only user of my computer with only one user account, why wouldn’t all of the menu items go into the same place? At the very least, there should be some way to consolidate the two if desired, other that the manual method.

But there I go, trying to apply logic to Microsoft. I should know better by now. Sigh!

Windows is designed to support multiple users on one system regardless of whether you use it that way or not. The all users “stuff” is a way for Windows to have one location to store shortcuts, etc. that apply to all users of the system. Otherwise, Windows would have to track all these items for each user, duplicating them when a new user was added, and removing them when a user was deleted.

Even though you only have one account setup, Windows has no way of determining that another account will never be setup. Therefore, the multi-user design is always in effect.

As Paul posted, whoever designed the installation routine for a program is repsonsible for where the shortcuts get created and whether or not you get any options during installation.

Joe

--Joe

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Also remember that there are some programs that are licensed to ONE USER not one machine and these will only add to the installing user’s menu.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Also remember that there are some programs that are licensed to ONE USER not one machine and these will only add to the installing user’s menu.

Never thought of that one, Dave!

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Also remember that there are some programs that are licensed to ONE USER not one machine and these will only add to the installing user’s menu.

So are you saying that, if I install a “one user” program as me, I can’t make an additional shortcut to that program in the “all users” folder? I don’t ever remember using a “one user license” program, but that doesn’t seem right. In Windows, you can pretty much put a shortcut anywhere.

I can see a program asking for a username/password on startup, but not limiting the location of the shortcut that starts the program.

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I have run across only 2 of these programs and one of them was a special version of Quicken or Quick Books. I think it was in the early XP days.

Yes, you can NOT add a WORKING short cut to the All Users area, as the program (NOT Windows) is written not to allow it. I think we tried and it would start up the program and then a error message pop up such as “Access denied” or such and then shut down the program.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I have run across only 2 of these programs and one of them was a special version of Quicken or Quick Books. I think it was in the early XP days.

Yes, you can NOT add a WORKING short cut to the All Users area, as the program (NOT Windows) is written not to allow it. I think we tried and it would start up the program and then a error message pop up such as “Access denied” or such and then shut down the program.

Hmmmm…..that’s a pretty pi$$y way to write a program. Glad not many of those survived. And now I have another reason to hate that BLOATWARE, Quicken!

Thanks for the replies.

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It is no longer in the current versions.
It WAS in only a special version way back when.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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