Classic Shell: Forum

Hi -- I hope there's still life here.

I've installed Classic Start Menu on a new Windows 10 x 64 system. I click on Start and then mouse over Programs. That displays folders and links from two different places. These appear to be the same places I get if I right-click on Programs and then choose Open or Open All Users.

I only want to see the contents of Open (not Open All Users). The folder that opens when I click Open is the one I have customized for my own purposes.

This is new behavior. I must have configured it, previously, to perform as desired, but somehow that didn't get saved when I saved my settings. Or maybe it's a quirk in Win10 version 1809, which I've just newly installed for the first time.

TIA for any ideas. I looked through the menu settings options and didn't see anything that looked like the answer.

As far as I'm aware it has always behaved this way (at least since windows 7)

When a program installs (It should) ask if it should create a shortcut for 'all users'
If the user (fred) says yes; it creates a shortcut in the 'all users' folder RATHER than creating 2 shortcuts, one for 'joe' and one for 'fred'
If the user (fred) says no; it creates a shortcut in freds start menu folder.

If you are dead-set on not having any outside changes to your start menu; you can remove the 'all programs' item in-favor for a custom folder (feel free to copy/paste the shortcuts from all-programs)
but this means new programs you install wont be able to automatically add shortcuts either.

Thanks for the quick reply! I wasn't sure if anyone still used the classic version. Could barely live without it, myself.

My setup .reg file has these lines:


Once I've run that, here's what has always happened when I click the Start button, using Classic Start Menu. I mouse up to the Programs item. What pops up is only the contents of the folder at X:\Start Menu\Programs. That part hasn't changed. What has changed is that I'm also seeing the contents of C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. So I think the question is whether there's a way to prevent display of the latter. This may be the question you were addressing, but if so I don't know exactly how to proceed.

Trying to insert an image here. It appears in the edit window, but not in the submitted final. Anyway, it's at https://i.imgur.com/ebBAwTt.png.

To get the situation shown in that image, I clicked on Start and moused over Programs. (Mouse cursor not shown.) The items in the right-hand list shown in orange are in X:\Start Menu\Programs. (So are the _Incoming and Miscellany folders, but I've already visited those, so they aren't displayed in the "new item" orange anymore.) Otherwise, the items not in orange are in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. Those are the ones I don't want to see.

Generally its better to edit classic shell settings via the UI
Right click the start button and select 'classic shell settings'
then check 'show all settings'
then click the 'customize start menu' tab
then right click the 'Programs' menu item
Then remove 'programs' from the command field
Then click on the label field (this should allow you to click on the link field
Now click on the link field and paste "X:\Start Menu\Programs" and then hit OK and OK again.
This should work.

I've always used the registry edits. I didn't know it was possible to do that redirection in Classic Start Menu.

Here's another image: https://imgur.com/iIkKMep
This one shows two Programs entries on the left. In my first try, I deleted the first Programs entry before adding the second one from the right-hand pane. The outcome was the same. (I didn't save changes.)


Hopefully I am at least in the desired place. Clicking on the Label field unfortunately didn't open up the Link field; it remained grayed.

Possibly there is a problem with my Classic Start Menu installation. I am noticing that, although I have checked Main Menu tab > Show recent programs on top, the list on top of the Start Menu is not updating with recently used programs.