Sorting Program shortcuts and Favorites

[Guest]

I would like to sort in alphabetical order my list of All Programs within
the Start menu.

It should be as easy as right-click, then select Sort by Name. The result of
doing this is OK from A down to a prog called Zip Reader, then 26 others form
a second (sorted) group. I need to integrate them into one sortable list.

'Exploring' the Start button reveals four folders containing Start Menu \
Programs: they are in Administrator, All Users, Default User and my own name.
The definitive one is in All Users, which reflects what I see from Start \
All Programs. I am the sole user of my PC with XP Home SP2.

Similar problems apply to the ordering of Favorites in IE. Tedious dragging
is frequently needed (and I find the operation tends to slip out of control),
and icons fade after a few days, by which I mean they get the IE default.

To refresh jaded icons for program shortcuts and favorites I downloaded
Tweak UI and ran Repair. I think some icons were refreshed, but not those on
IE Favorites, which remain uniformly the IE default.

Trying to use the technique for sorting IE Favorites, I found I had to
'explore' which opened a Windows Explorer panel in which it was possible to
click on Name to sort by file name. Fine for a moment, but back in the IE
Favorites list, the sort was not effected.

I have noticed that the second of the two separately sorted groups of progs
in All Programs have it in common that they are shortcuts, sporting the
little arrow in the bottom left corner of the icon. The application names
above them in the main batch are file folders rather than shortcuts.
Presumably this is why the 'sort by name' procedure fails to integrate them.

I do not know why these 26 progs appear as shortcuts. They include the MS
Office apps and one called Audacity, installed from the Sep 2006 PC-Pro cover
CD. I cannot recall making any intervention which might have caused them to
appear as one file type rather than another.

 

[Ken Blake]

I would like to sort in alphabetical order my list of All Programs
within the Start menu.

It should be as easy as right-click, then select Sort by Name. The
result of doing this is OK from A down to a prog called Zip Reader,

Are these folders?

then 26 others form a second (sorted) group.

And these files?

I need to integrate them
into one sortable list.

If my guess above is correct, you can't--not unless you first manually
change the folders in the list to shortcuts to the executables (or vice
versa)

 

[Wesley Vogel]

The Start Menu that you see is a combination of both of these folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu
or %allusersprofile%\Start Menu
and
C:\Documents and Settings\YourNameHere\Start Menu
or %userprofile%\Start Menu

All Users Start Menu: Refers to the start menu common for all users.

User Start Menu: Refers to the start menu of that user.

Move everything that you want sorted to one folder or the other.

Same for the Desktop.

The Desktop you see is a combination of two folders.

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop
and
C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name Here\Desktop

Or...

%userprofile%\Desktop
and
%allusersprofile%\Desktop

All Users Desktop: Refers to the desktop common for all the users.

User Desktop: Refers to the desktop of that user.

Has the same effect when sorting because it is sorting two different folders
that are displayed in the same place.

Start Menu and Desktop are NameSpaceExtensions which shows the contents of
two folders.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

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