Start Menu Question For Vista

I have all but given up on being able to get my recent items working on the start menu, I ran ccleaner when i got my computer and pc decrapifier and I think that was my problem. My simple question is, is there a way to get the all programs button away and just have all the programs immediatly pop up? Just have no recent items at all. I dont like the classic start menu because of the documents set up so i want this. Thanks for any help

 

Did you enable "recent items" in the startmenu options?

 

I assume when you say "recent items", you mean the list of recent programs you have used that appears under the programs you pinned. You could just go under taskbar properties and unclick "show list of recent programs used."

 

and then pin the apps you want directly on the "main view" of the startmenu. just type "word", then rightclick the found "Microsoft Word 2007", and say "Pin to Startmenu". that way, you can build your own list of "favourites". optional with big or small icons.

I have about 14 apps in there depending on the system i use.

 

problem with that is items simply will not work in that section, word and itunes for one refuse to work. I would just like all programs to immediatly come up. I have a rocketdock that i use for all my highly used programs so when I come here im looking for stuff i use rarely.

 

remove the rocketdock and just use the startmenu that's what it's for..

rare stuff: press the orb (the round thing a.k.a start button) or the winkey on the keyboard. and then type "itunes" and press enter. searching is annoying, finding is better

and word and itunes work perfectly well in that section. i can give you printscreens of it

 

as i said, they dont on mine, they have never worked. And rocketdock is amazing. Its pretty simple what I want to do but from everyone giving me alternatives it doesn't seem possible. As I said, i ran pc decrapifier and cccleaner when i got my computer and it screwed up some things and thats the two things that never work.

 

what i mean by they dont work there, is they dont work in the recent items area even if i pin them.

 

it works on any machine i ever touched. maybe i should touch yours?

(i don't use the recent items area myself, though). but pinning always works so far.

 

as i said, its not a problem with the individual items, CCLeaner and pc decrapifier deleted some stuff it shouldnt have.

 

If I understand right, you're recent programs list is constantly empty, and as a workaround you would just rather have the programs menu open all the time. I don't know of anything that could do that, but I had that problem too. You used CCleaner, and that's probably the culprit. First in it's settings uncheck clear recent programs list, then just give your start menu sometime to recache that. Took my start menu a few times of launching programs to start addings things to it. It might not be immediately, I don't know the exact steps, probably if you just cleared it with CCleaner, restart, and just start workign as normal, and it shoudl relist the stuff again, and next time don't use ccleaner to clear the recent programs list to keep the recent programs. If you really want, just go to the start menu properties, customize yoru start menu and put the recent programs list to 0 and just pin a buncha programs in there. It's kinda dock-esq. Just use Vista search to find programs fast too.

 

it doesn't explain why pinning doesn't work.

 

Pinning the programs don't make it work? That's a PEBKAC.

 

no, some programs work here and they even will get created on the recent programs, they just wont work there. every where else, fine, just not there.