Customizing the Desktop

For many users, the Start and Programs menus are the central repository for frequently used programs and files. You can customize the contents of the Start menu and the Programs menu — simply drag items to easily add, remove, and reorder links to programs, files, and folders. A shortcut menu appears when you right-click an item.

In Windows 2000 Professional, you can display certain components, such as Control Panel, as subfolders directly from the Start menu rather than in a new window. For more information about changing the display of components from the Start menu, see Procedures for Customizing the Start Menu later in this chapter.

Personalized menus are another new feature of Windows 2000 Professional. Enabled by default, the system keeps track of the most frequently used items on the Programs menu (and its submenus) and displays only those items when you activate the menu. To expand the menu to see all of the items that are available, allow the mouse pointer to pause on the double arrows at the bottom of the menu (as seen in Figure 8.2) to display infrequently used items (as seen in Figure 8.3).

Figure 8.2 Personalized Menu Displaying Only the Most Recently Used Items

Figure 8.3 Personalized Menu Expanded to Display Infrequently Used Items

For more information about Personalized Menus, see Procedures for Using Personalized Menus later in this chapter.

Personalized menus are also available in Internet Explorer 5 and Microsoft Office 2000 programs. Enabling and disabling personalized menus in Windows 2000 does not affect personalized menus in other programs.

Administrators can use Group Policy settings to restrict access to the Start and Programs menus. Some of these Group Policy settings are described later in this chapter.