LeeTutor's Doing Windows
Windows Tips Categories
Start Menu Tips
CONFIGURING THE START MENU & TASKBAR IN
WINDOWS ME
You can get to the window for configuring
various options regarding the Start Menu and the Taskbar
in the same way as you did under Win95 and Win98: right
click a blank area of the Taskbar and select Properties.
However, there are quite a few more options available.
The first new thing you see on the General tab of this
window is an option, which, by default, has a check mark
next to it, labeled "Use personalized menus."
If you are using personalized menus, this means that your
Start Menu will not make visible all the entries that are
actually on it, but instead will only show you the ones
you've most recently clicked on. You can still get to the
less used entries, by clicking on the downward pointing
arrow at the bottom of the menu column. I turned this
option off, so my Start Menu shows every entry in it.
If you click on the Advanced tab of the Taskbar and Start
Menu Properties Page, you will see a number of other
options. For example, you can choose whether or not to
display the Run, Logoff, and Favorites items on the Start
Menu. You can choose whether or not to enable dragging
and dropping of entries on the Start Menu. You can choose
to "expand" Control Panel, Dial-Up Networking,
My Documents, My Pictures, and Printers on the Start
Menu.
What this means for each of these items (which are all
individually configurable) is the same thing, but let me
illustrate it with the choice to Expand Control Panel on
the Start Menu. I have done so, and now I do not have to
click on Control Panel after clicking on Settings in the
Start Menu in order to see a window with all the Control
Panel options in it as icons which you double click in
order to open (which is the way this works in Windows 95
and 98.) Instead, I see another cascading menu with all
the Control Panel options after I move the mouse cursor
over to Control Panel.
Another option for the Start Menu is a checkbox
specifying whether to "Scroll Programs." If you
do, then the Programs submenu will scroll via up and down
arrows, as in Windows 98. If you don't, then the Programs
submenu will be shown in columns, as in Windows 95.
In the Taskbar section of the Advanced tab, there are two
new options: first, you can choose whether or not to
display a Context menu when you right click the Taskbar
or a button on it. And second, you are given the choice
of locking the size and location of the Taskbar or of
being able to move it and resize it (as you can in
Windows 95 and 98.)