Handy Start Menu

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on May 23, 2011

Start Menu enhancements are numerous, but most complaints about the Windows Start Menu boil down to this: there's too much stuff in it, and you have to click through folders to get to your programs. ChemTable Software's Handy Start Menu addresses these two issues by grouping Start Menu items together by category and by replacing folders with shortcuts that open the application in question with a single click. You can quickly toggle back to the regular Start Menu, too. Better still, it's free.

Clicking Handy Start Menu's desktop icon opens a dialog with an About section and three commands: enable or disable the program, adjust its categories, and offer feedback. We could also use the program's Start Menu entry or its system tray icon to access its control dialog. Clicking the Enable button altered the Start Menu's All Programs view by grouping our programs into the provided categories. Four apps didn't fit, so we clicked Adjust Categories and selected our choices from an extensive list. We also created a custom category, Desktop, for some utilities we keep parked there. Among the categories are Office, Internet, Utilities, Fun and Games, Graphics and Design, and For Developers. Clicking the Back button returned us to our start-up menu view; clicking All Programs took us back to Handy Start Menu's list again. Program icons replaced folders in Handy Start Menu's tree view but preserved its structure. Clicking any program icon opened the app immediately, yet we could still browse through the folders.

The Start Menu is sort of like your hall closet: there's too much stuff in it, but when you go to clean it out, the keep pile is usually a lot bigger than the toss pile. Handy Start Menu solves this problem by grouping your important stuff together. Add the ability to open programs with a click, and you have a Windows enhancement that's actually an improvement.

Publisher's Description

From ChemTable Software:

Handy Start Menu program allows you to get rid of this problem by grouping Start menu applications into categories according to their purpose. Because applications are sorted automatically, the user is not required to do anything in most situations. There is also another inconvenience in using the standard Start menu. To run a program, you need to open a folder that contains that application. But why do we need to open a folder and select the main application shortcut every time we want to run a program? When you start using the Handy Start Menu, the menu folders become shortcuts. A single click on a program folder is enough to run a relevant application automatically.

A folder does not lose its properties: It contains child items as before, and you can easily open any of them. It is important to note that the Handy Start Menu only applies a more convenient way of representing the content of the Start menu, rather than modifying files and folders physically. At any time, you can easily restore the standard look of the Start menu by disabling the Handy Start Menu program.