Need Help Consolidating

I'm running Windows XP, and I'd like to clean up some space under Start > "All Programs" by consolidating or removing entries.....but I'm not sure how to do this, or if it can even be done. Here is a picture of what I'm referring to:

http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/827/startupmenu8zc.png

The "Startup" option is one I'd like to remove. I'm not even sure of the purpose it serves, and as you can see it only lists two entries: Adobe Reader Speed Launch and Hosts Manager. That same Hosts Manager is listed under a seperate "Hosts Manager" entry under All Programs, but the Adobe Reader Speed Launch is NOT listed under Adobe (which you can see on the left hand side). I'm assuming it would be OK to delete the Hosts Manager entry, since it's a duplicate entry....and probably OK to delete the "Startup" entry as well.....but is there any way to move the Adobe Reader Speed Launch entry over to be included with the Adobe listing?

Hopefully I've explained this well enough, and someone will read this that knows. I appreciate all help with this and for letting me know what can and can't be done.

Thanks

 

The Startup folder will list those programs set to start automatically when Windows does. If you remove them from Startup then you would have to start them manually.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

Thanks, CrazyM.

Hmmm.....that's interesting. I have a couple of dozen "startup" programs, but only these two show up under this particular entry. That's why I was thinking that it was pretty worthless and could likely be removed.

If that's the case, though, then why don't the other 20+ programs show up under this particular "All Programs" startup entry? I'm kind of confused now....

 

There are a number of different ways applications/processes will auto start with Windows, the Startup folders is just one, via the registry is another. If you do not currently have something that will show all of these, you could try the free Autostart Viewer from DCS.

Regards,

CrazyM

 

Hi JRCATES

All the Start menu shortcuts are displayed in the Documents and Setting folder under all users and also in the individual users folders.

The easiest way of cleaning up the clutter is by putting groups of similar programs into a folder associated with them as detailed below.

Goto C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs

Click on Programs Then click on file on the windows explorer toolbar
select New...Folder
a folder Icon will be displayed in your Programs folder, Name this
to your choice ie SpywarePrograms.
Then you can drag and drop all your spyware programs into this folder
Your start menu will now show the new folder and when you click on it
it will expand all the programs in there and you just select the one you want.

All the Programs you put into the new folder will have been removed from
the Start menu.

However sometimes your programs are also duplicated in
C:/Documents and Settings/users name/Start Menu/Programs (where users name is You)

If a program is still displayed on the Start menu (after putting it into the new folder it needs to be deleted from the duplicate folder)

Hope this helps