In Windows the Programs menu often compresses to the most often used and you have to hit a little arrow to get it to show all choices. How do I turn this off? I want to always see the entire menu.
Well, I think I get what you're asking about. But even if I'm a little off, what I'm about to explain actually covers several things.
In fact, most people don't realize that there's a plethora of customization options related to the Start menu.
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Right click on the Start button, and you'll see a popup context menu, much like this:
Click on Properties and you should get this:
You can see I've clicked on the Start Menu tab, since that's what we want to customize, but you can also see the Taskbar tab, for customizing that.
There are a couple of ways we can go here, and I'll show you both. With Start Menu selected, click on the Customize for this dialog:
Again, you can see I've clicked on the Advanced tab. Here you'll find several options you can customize to your heart's content. What we want is further down the list of Start menu items, so scroll down in that list:
Look for Scroll Programs. The help for this item states "Specifies whether to display the items on the Programs menu as one long scrolling menu, or as horizontal pages. Depending on your screen resolution ..." you may or may not see arrows at each end of the list that you would use to scroll that list.
That was all for the "newer", Windows XP style start menu. OK or Cancel your way all the way back to the original Properties dialog that we started with. This time, click on Classic Start menu (which is more like Windows 2000 and Windows 9x), and then click Customize, for a slightly different Customize dialog:
Once again there are several things that can be customized here. And once again what we need is near the bottom of the Advanced Start menu options list:
You can see that Scroll Programs is present as before, but so is something labeled Use Personalized Menus. That's documented as ".. keeps the Programs menu clean by hiding items you haven't used recently...".
This sounds closer to what the original request described, so I'm guessing that you have Classic Start Menu turned on.
In any case, the options here allow a fair amount of customization of the start menu. Have fun playing with it.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Why don't installed programs show up for all users?
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Ask Leo! - My Taskbar is missing and I have no Start button - what do I do?
Article C2538 - January 31, 2006
Thank you so much! It's been a couple of years since I got a new computer and for the life of me I couldn't remember how to fix the display issue of all programs. I feel so much more complete now.
Super thanks! ~ Mrs. Church
Posted by: Mrs. Church at January 27, 2007 12:44 PMI think the original question was the same one I have - not in the Start menu, but in Office programs, such as Excel, a user has to click an arrow to get all the menu choices. How do I turn that feature off so that, when I select an Excel menu, the whole menu shows at once?
Posted by: Rick at April 6, 2007 11:03 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Well, the original question does say "In Windows", however...
Take Word, for example: right click on your menu bar, and click on
"Customize...". Then click on the "Options" tab, and therein click on "Always
show full menus".
Excel and other Office apps work similarly.
Leo
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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at April 8, 2007 9:39 AM2k1LNnDx8aYoZ+mvbH5xO8Y=
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thanks!!! sooo.. annoying!!
Posted by: james at April 30, 2007 3:45 PMthank you so very much! that's one of winxp features i really really hate! i wanted to always see the items in Programs menu now it's fixed. the phrase "use personalized menus" sounds so obscure it seems like winxp is trying to prevent people from disabling the feature! heehee!
Posted by: brian at November 3, 2007 4:21 PMI've got a very similar question. Under the classic start menu, you have the ability to use 'personalized menus' which, if I understand correctly, hides the least commonly used programs in the programs list. Here's the question, is there any way to do that in the XP styled start menu?
Posted by: Kasper at March 7, 2008 8:48 AMhi leo. thanks for the great help. i adjusted various settings on your advice and they made my desktop even more user friendly.
Posted by: keka at April 4, 2008 7:36 PMThanks. That was one of the best tutorials ever.
Posted by: banzemanga at May 22, 2008 6:59 PMThanks. Makes my start menu useable again.
Posted by: Vic Meuer at August 8, 2008 4:27 PMTo think, i was so close to solving this myself. Anyway your article helped Leo, thanks.
Posted by: Damian at October 7, 2009 3:07 PM