Window's Tips (1 of 2)

Where's the IE7 File Open Menu? (Win XP)

   I use Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Mozilla Firefox 2.0 (my favorite) web browsers. I don't know if it irritated you like it did me the first time I used IE7, but I wondered where the heck did the top-level File menu go? Now, the whole idea behind hiding the menubar was an effort to de-clutter the GUI for IE7. That's what I read anyway. I liked it where it was! (see below)

   You can go to the IE7's Tools menu and select the Menu Bar item to bring back our beloved File menu, but, it places the menubar below all the other toolbars!

   Like I said, I liked it where it was -- at top! So here's a simple registry entry you can make, it won't harm your computer in anyway and is not a nefarious hack. Read the See Also link at the bottom of the page if you have any questions regarding adding, deleting and editing registry keys. You can download the toolbar.reg file here and simply double-click the file and the Windows registry will be updated. Once the key is set in the registry IE7 will need to be shutdown and reopened for the changes to take effect. The contents of the file are below. If you prefer, you can copy the text below to a text file and name the file toolbar.reg.

toolbar.reg[239Byte ZIP]

   That's better! Now I can sleep at night.

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Sort Start Menu

   I stumbled on a web site the other day that demonstrated how to hack your registry so you could sort that doggone Windows Start Menu . Yes, I will repeat: I stumbled on a web site that showed you how to hack your registry to enable sorting of the Start Menu!

???

   Folks...don't do that! It isn't necessary. Simply select any item in the Start Menu and right-click to bring up the popup menu, then select Sort by Name. This option will sort all menu items alphabetically (see below). Save the registry hacking for when you' want to bring your system down. A little knowledge in the registry can be a dangerous thing!

Hope it helps!

- Brent P.