We all know that Microsoft has removed good old Classic Start menu from Windows 7. There are lots of free utilities mentioned here which can bring it back.
We have also posted a tutorial in past which can be used to get a similar XP styled start menu in Windows Vista and 7:
Get Windows XP Styled Classic All Programs List in Windows Vista and 7
Today we are going to share another interesting method to bring back Classic start menu in Windows 7 and the best part is that it doesn't require any 3rd party utility.
This manual method takes advantage of our Get Quick Launch toolbar back in Windows 7 tutorial.
So without wasting any time, here we start our tutorial:
1. Right-click on Taskbar and select "Toolbars -> New toolbar...".
2. It'll open Browse dialog box. Now paste following string in the "Folder:" text box:
%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
Press Enter and click on "Select folder" button.
3. It'll immediately add Programs toolbar to Taskbar.
4. It'll add it near the system tray. Right-click on Taskbar and uncheck "Lock the taskbar" option.
5. You'll see a placeholder to drag the toolbar. Click and hold the drag-handle and drop it just after the Start ORB (Start button).
6. It'll move the Programs toolbar near start ORB (Start button) but you'll notice that the children folders under "Programs" toolbar will become visible and will start taking lots of space of Taskbar. No need to worry! Double-click on drag-handle of Taskbar button toolbar (where you see currently running applications icons). It'll automatically move the Taskbar button toolbar and you'll see only "Programs" text in the newly added toolbar which you wanted actually.
7. As you can see in above screenshot, it looks very close to Classic start menu and we are not using any 3rd party software in this method.
Thanks to our reader "Juan C Walls" for this trick...
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows 7.
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Samar
Hi! thanks for the suggestion Vishal and Juan C Walls, as always!! hey can i kindly request you to deidicate a page for 'Environment Variables' (%ProgramData%, etc.) - this is something very helpful for users who install OSs on different machines.
Thanks,
Samar
Juan C Walls
You're welcome!
When I first tried this trick I had problems with very slow rendering of the icons while freezing the entire taskbar for several seconds (almost a minute!). The same happened with the Quick Launch toolbar trick.
Since I've seen many people who suffers the same symptom, here is the solution: I'm almost sure you have Panda Antivirus. Remove it (and replace it with another one!) and ask Panda to correct this issue ASAP.
Ozcan
Wonderful! I've been trying to put "All Programs" To a single click away mode but could not succeed without resorting to 3rd Party Apps that add another useless overhead to the computer.
Thanks for all who were involved.