The broken links checker will automatically scan the Windows Start Menu for broken shortcuts. Each shortcut found to not working anymore will be displayed in its interface giving the user the option to delete them from the start menu.

Some or all of the broken shortcuts can be selected in the overview. A click on the finish button will delete all selected links from the Windows Start Menu. The software program will only delete the shortcuts and not the folders that they reside in.

It should be noted that popular system cleaners such as CCleaner are also capable of deleting broken shortcuts from the start menu. An easy way to delete empty folders in the Windows Start Menu is to use a program like Remove Empty Directories and point it to the path on the computer system that stores the start menu entries (Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\).

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Start by opening the Windows Registry with [windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [enter]. Search for the key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

Double-click on the Default entry in the right window and replace the value with a name of your own. If you want to link to a downloads directory name it downloads.

Create a new key by right-clicking and selecting New > Key from the menu. Name the key DefaultIcon. Double-click on Default again and enter a path to an icon on the computer system. You can for instance use shell icons. To use the generic folder icon you give the key the following value:

%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,-4

Click here for a full list of possible values.

Open the subkey Instance\InitPropertyBag. Right-click and select New > String from the menu and name it command. Give the string the same name that you have chosen in the first step. We will name it downloads so that it matches the name that we have selected.

Create two additional strings by right-clicking and selecting New > String. Name the strings param1 and param2. Double-click param1 and give it the value explorer.exe. Double-click param2 and enter a path on the computer system, e.g. c:\downloads\.

Navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Create or edit the DWORD entry Start_ShowOEMLink. Double-click it afterwards and give it the value 1.

Now restart the computer, log off or kill and restart the explorer.exe process. The new entry in the Windows Start Menu should appear.

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One interesting aspect of the software is the option to run the new Start Menu next to the old one for some time to find out if it better suits the needs. The new Start Menu makes use of a search tab at the top and five tabs at the bottom that provides access to various files and services with enough options to customize most of the display and entries.

The Start Menu is separated by the tabs Favorites, Recent, Computer, Programs and Leave.

• Favorites contain links that are added by the user. Links can be added in various ways including from other tabs of the Start Menu or by editing the favorites.txt file that comes with the application.
• The Recent tab displays programs and files that have been opened recently by the user.
• The Computer tab contains links to profile folders like My Documents, Printers or the Run dialog.
• The tab Programs contains links to all programs that are installed on the computer.
• Leave provides links to options like shutting down, logging off or closing the Open Menu application.

The program’s options contain various possibilities to change the look and feel of the application. It is possible to change the skin, remove items from the Start Menu or to change the default locations of system paths.

Open Menu+ uses roughly 20 Megabytes of computer memory when running in the open. The application itself is very responsive and easy to use.

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ViOrb Remastered is one small tool that might be one of those that this user groups loves. It does not do more than to replace the Windows XP start button with the Windows vista’s start button. That’s pretty straightforward with no configuration needed at all. The user simply has to execute the file after unzipping it and it will automatically replace the start button for as long as it is running.

The software is currently available as a pre-beta build in the forum of the developer after registration. While it does not throw any error messages during usage the author still has some annoyances to sort out before releasing the software program.

The main problem with the application is that the start button works as intended if the taskbar is at the bottom of the screen. Items get replaced however if the taskbar has been moved by the user to the sides of the screen making it unusable in its current state.

This can be fixed by moving the taskbar to the bottom and then back to the side if auto-hide is not enabled. Once the taskbar hides itself automatically the entries get pushed aside again.

The application uses roughly 5 Megabytes of computer memory while running. The only way to uninstall it is by opening the Task Manager and killing the process (which crashed Explorer). A restart of the system or logging off / on again should do the trick as well.

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But even those users who rely on the Windows Start Menu won’t have that many difficulties accommodating because Start Killer, the name of the application, removes the Start button only for the time it is running in the background. It furthermore provides keyboard shortcuts to display the Windows Start Menu even while running.

Start Killer will automatically remove the Windows Start Menu button from the Windows Taskbar once it is running. It works with every taskbar orientation possible which should make users happy who run the Windows Taskbar on the left or right side of the screen.

Windows Taskbar:

Windows Taskbar with Start Killer running:

A few things need to be explained. The Windows Start Menu can be displayed with the keyboard shortcuts [Windows] or [CTRL+ESC]. That opens the Windows Start Menu at the usual position and hides it again once the user has finished the task at hand.

Start Killer adds an icon to the Windows System Tray which provides access to several settings after right-clicking it. The application can be set to load on system startup. It is furthermore possible to disable the System Tray icon in the options.

Computer memory usage of Start Killer is at the low end with about 2.5 Megabytes and barely any virtual memory.

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This provides fast access to all programs, files, folders and applications that are accessible in the dock. The icons can shape as a circle or spiral around the center. The Circle Dock is placed on top of every other open window and remains on top even if another window is activated.

New items can be simply placed in the circle by dragging and dropping them into the center. They appear in the next free place of the circle. If no free space is available a new bigger circle is created where the icon will be placed. Icons can be moved around to place the most used applications near the center for easier access.

The mouse wheel rotates the icons in the circle and a left-click loads the selected application. The program comes with more than 20 skins that provide different shapes. It’s pretty amazing how flexible that program is. You can add/remove application titles, backgrounds, increase or decrease fonts and sizes of pretty much everything so that the dock suits your needs in the end and blends perfectly with the rest of the desktop.

I’d like to mention a few interesting functions. Circle Dock is portable and Open Source. That in combination with the option to synchronize the dock with files that are located in a specified folder makes up for an interesting USB application launcher. This is also great in networks where every computer should have access to the same shortcuts. Circle Dock is also compatible with multi-monitor systems.

The software program requires Windows XP or Windows Vista in either the 32-bit or 64-bit version and the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5. The only thing that is lowering my enthusiasm for the application is the memory usage of 30 Megabytes of memory and virtual memory which is a lot for such an application.

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SMOz is basically a start menu organizer that provides eight folders, like multimedia and games, to organize the start menu properly. It does not do anything that cannot be done with little manual work. It adds eight folders to the Windows Start Menu that could be described as categories. These folders are then automatically populated by SMOz by moving known applications to the corresponding folder.

It would for example move iTunes into the Multimedia folder and Nero Burning Rom into CD-Utilities. To sum it up: It adds eight folders to the Start Menu and scans the existing start menu entries for applications that are in its database to move them to the right folder.

The real question is if you really need a software for that or if it would not be faster to create the folders manually and move the applications afterwards into them. It is still necessary to move most of the installed applications manually into the correct folder because SMOz fails to identify most of them.

SMOz does not provide a way to only move the executable file of a Start Menu entry into another folder. If it is located in a folder the whole folder has to be moved. I never understood the folder concept there anyway for single applications. I do not need access to read me documents, uninstall or the manual in the start menu.

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It does not make sense in my opinion to have a software like Notepad in that list because you normally open it automatically when clicking on a text document. It is possible to disable that feature altogether but that’s probably not wanted all of the time. The XP Run Count Editor lists all tracked  applications giving the user the option to change the Run Count value of the application.

You can increase or decrease the Run Count of an application so that it appears on a specific position in the start menu. The highest value will of course appear on the top of the frequently accessed programs list while lower values appear at the bottom.

If you want to get rid of this feature completely you right-click the Start Menu and select Properties. The Customize button opens a new window where you can set the number of programs that will appear in the list. If you set that value to 0 no programs will be listed.

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I used this way to start several applications after system start until I discovered that it is possible to start multiple applications from the start menu without that auto-closing feature.

If you press the SHIFT key while clicking on the start menu it will not close after launching an application. It will simply remain open which means that you can start as many applications as you want from the start menu. This is also nice if you want to delete several entries from the start menu.

Normally deleting an entry would also close the start menu which would mean that you have to open it five times if you want to delete five items. If you press SHIFT this is not happening. You may now delete all folders in the start menu without it being closed after each process.

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The answer was a clear ‘no’. There is however a much better way than to simply ignore the startmenu. I’m talking about an application called JetStart which is a tiny utility which replaces the original startmenu with a cleaner better one. It looks more compact, displays the applications that you use the most plus adds several predefined folders like Internet that can be populated with shortcuts as well.

Jetstart offers another feature which is a fully customizable floating toolbar that allows you to access all categories and launch favorite programs quickly. The main program window let’s you not only quickly search for and launch programs but also uninstall them. It is also possible to import items from the original start menu.

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The default commands open Word, let you search Google, Yahoo, Live Search and IMDB, use Sudo application to start the application with admin rights and search Wikipedia and Dictionary.com. Using the command “y spyware spam fighting” would open search results from the Yahoo search for that query in your default browser. Everything described until now have been so called Command Startlets. Start++ has another feature which is called Search Startlets. The commands play, playartist and playalbum followed by the name of an artist search your hard drives for that name and play the songs, videos or albums automatically. Play Who by Fire for instance would search for the Song Who by Fire from Leonard Cohen and play it if found on the system.

The biggest advantage of Start++ is of course that every user may add commands to Start++ that aid him in working with Windows Vista. You can add new commands and search startlets. New commands could open applications with a simple shortcut. Let me give an example of how that would work.

I will add a command to launch notepad from the search box. I click on New in the list of commands and type !note as the shortcut. Name can be anything that you like so Notepad would be good to be able to identify what the command is doing. The command itself is simply notepad.exe

Once Saved I can start Notepad by typing in !note in the search box of the start menu. You sometimes have to add the full path to an application but that is the only thing that might differ.

Adding Internet searches is a little bit more trickier. Lets add a command that searches eBay for the search string that we enter. We have to perform a search on eBay to see how eBay handles the parameters. Go to eBay.com and enter a search term, test for instance. Take a look at the url and search for test in there. We have to replace test with %+ in the command box from start++.

So, to add a eBay search we would create a new command, give it the shortcut e and the name eBay and add the following line to the command http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=%+&category0= Please note that I removed some of the options in the url to shorten the output on my blog. You can now search eBay for antivirus software using the command “e antivirus”. The same principle applies to many other sites such as Amazon, Digg and others.

I compiled a list for some popular web services on the next page, just copy the urls into the command box.

• Amazon
• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Ebay
• Engadget
• Gizmodo
• Lifehacker
• Myspace
• Techcrunch
• Youtube

As you can see it is pretty easy to add your favorite site to start++.

Search Startlets use a slightly more complicated syntax. If you take a look at the play shortcut you notice the command kind:(music OR video) %* store:file ; Let me explain the variables here:

• kind: refers to the type of file that you want to play, in this case we have choose to include a OR statement which means that a search for music and video files is performed.
• %* means that all results are added to the playlist, %1 would mean that only the first and %n where n is a number would add that number to the playlist and play them.
• store:file – Well I can only guess here but i suppose that it defines that it should search for files only.

Start++ is a very nice application that added tremendous usability to Windows Vista. Can only recommend it to everyone who is running Vista.

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You could probably live with the search function only which can find files as well and displays them in a list. Clicking the file would have the same effect as entering it in the run box. It can however take some time until the search finds the filename and the run box is just a little bit faster to work with. So, to add the run box to the start menu do the following:

• Right-click the taskbar and select Properties
• Click on the start menu tab and select customize
• Find the Run Command and select it
• Hit ok until you left every menu and are back in Windows
• The Run Box should be there immediately

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The best thing is that you customize the toolboxes anyway you want. Add icons, make the toolbox transparent, let it remain always on top, use background images and much more to make it look the way you want it. I’m using it to display all of my drives and their free space in the left corner of my desktop. Clicking on a drive opens the root folder of that drive and displays the contents.

Toolbox is free and does not need to be installed at all. Just unpack it into a folder of your choice and run it from there. You can create two toolboxes that use predefined elements using the Wizard. One creates a toolbox with all of your drives and the other one with all your personal folders. If you do not want to use those you can create a new toolbox, change its size and add elements to it.

Looks good, feels good, one of the applications that I can recommend to every Windows user.

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The freeware Start Menu Cleaner scans the complete start menu folder structure searching for empty folders and links that point to no where. If it finds such a folder or link it asks whether you want to delete the entry or leave it as it is. It scans the desktop as well which makes it an excellent tool for a quick scan of both areas.

You can choose to delete everything automatically without action from the user and choose to disregard shortcuts that point to files on network and removable drives. Start Menu Cleaner is only 90K in size and does not need to be installed, simply run it from any location you want.

Click on Cleaner in the left menu when you are on the authors homepage, there is unfortunately no direct link to the program.

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You can find the installation file at the donation coders website, and a license code can also be obtained there.
For the license code you can choose between registering at the forum, or get a anonymous serial.

After you installed the program you can activate it with ctrl+spacebar.
Then at the end of the searchbar you can click the gear for the option screen.
In here you can specify that the programs has that start when windows loads, Change the hotkey information in the interface tab, And change the search folders in the search folders tab.
I advice to remove the scanning of the program files directory in the search folder tab as that made the program a lot slower (but then again, that depends on how much you have in there)

A nice way to make shortcuts to directory’s is to make a directory called shortcuts and place a shortcut to the directory in that directory.
Then in the search folders tab you enter a new entry (right mouse click) and point toward the shortcut directory.
This way those shortcuts are also included in the search results and you only have to double click, or select them and press enter, to go there.

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