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Have a cleaner, more organized Start menu

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

  • Updated:

Clean up Windows Start menuIf you’re anything like us Softonic editors, you probably have a multiple-column Windows Start menu that is not useful anymore. So if you have decided to bring back its functionality as application launcher, you’d better put some order into that chaos before it’s too late.

The first – and most obvious – tip is, of course, not to install software that you don’t really need. Unless you work as a software journalist, you probably need only a few applications in your PC so simply don’t overload it with extra apps that will only eat disk space and system resources. Use the Control Panel to uninstall those apps you no longer need and you’ll contribute to cleaning the clutter in the Start menu.

Many newly installed applications add a complete collection of shortcuts to the Start menu. Think about Adobe Acrobat Reader or IZArc: you never actually launch those apps from the Start menu, but rather double click on PDF files or archive files to open them. Go ahead and delete those entries from the Start menu by right clicking on the correspondent folder and selecting Delete.

Clean up Windows Start menuFor further customization, right click on the Start button and select Properties. Then, in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window, click on the Customize button and you’ll access a complete settings window for the Start menu: the General tab lets you choose the icon size, limit the number of frequently used programs and disable the Internet and email icons, while the Advanced tab lets you choose exactly which icons should be displayed and which shouldn’t.

Finally, don’t forget that there are software tools with which you can clean up the Start menu, add new functionalities to it or make it look like Vista. If you’re interested in boosting up your Start menu, have a look at the Start Menu Utilities category at Softonic and you’ll find lots of tweakers and power-ups to improve the Windows native menu.

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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