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Windows 95

Startup Menu

Instead of going to C:\Windows\Recent to delete all the files that appear in the Documents menu of the Start Menu (as mentioned in this site), just choose Settings in the Start Menu and click on Taskbar&Start Menu... Then click on Start Menu Programs and click Clear.

Another even easier way is to right-click the taskbar, click on Properties, and then do the same things mentioned above.

If you drag a document, application or shortcut to the Start button, that item will be added to the menu.

Goodbye, old Document list

If you would like to clean up what is listed when you click on Start, Documents, go to Windows Explorer, open up the Windows directory and then the Recent directory. You can delete whatever you no longer want to see in the Documents selection. Windows will automatically start cluttering this area again as soon as you open a new document.

Start/Run . . .

The Start menu has a dialogue named "Run . . ." which is very powerful. Not only can you type in application names such as "notepad" to launch notepad.exe, but you can also type all kinds of things. For example:

"www.ugeek.com" - typing in a URL will launch your installed browser and point it to the specified Web site.

"system.ini" - typing in the name (and usually the path) of a file with a recognized extension will launch the associated application, in this case, notepad.exe, which will then load the file.

Want to rearrange the Start menu?

Right click on the Start button and select Explore. This will launch Explorer and point it to the location where the Start menu structure is stored (typically "c:\windows\start menu"). From Explorer you can then rearrange the items as you wish. If, instead of selecting "Explore", you select "Open", you will be shown the single-panel version of Explorer.