![]() How can we manage it so that it updates dynamically based on user entitlements so that we have security and flexibility, but also is easy to manage and doesn’t require a lot of updating? History The Start Menu in Windows used to be a user-customizable area of the filesystem, but ever since Windows 8, new functionality has been added here that has made it much more tricky to manage. Be wary of tiles.Let’s sort the Start Menu out…and find a nice, secure, simple way of managing it.WEM and I had multiple angry words in my lab as we fought to build this out Be cognizant of any other technologies controlling or manipulating these locations.Use random tools like ftp.exe which don’t live in the start menu by default Don’t use inbuilt apps like notepad and calculator for testing - this will drive you batty.5 bucks says everyone fell into the same trap of copying shortcuts or using common shortcuts that already existed in the Start Menu. I was disturbed to find post after post of people struggling with this concept, hit and miss results and even some simple feedback that was accepted as “couldn’t be done”. Seems to be a relevant statement in this era of Windows 10. More I learn the more I realize the less I know. Note that the Profile based Start Menu (%AppData%) overrides and owns the shortcut in the James Folder. The images below display the behaviour of the calculator shortcut when it is defined in both the Common Start Menu (%ProgramData%) and the User Profile based Start menu (%AppData%) It appears that a custom created Start Menu Folder housed in the user profile %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs will be the most authorative, followed by default folders such as Windows Accessories within the same profile, and then finally the common start menu location %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs though this is just from my testing. You cannot have two copies of that same executable path defined anywhere in the Start Menu and expect it to be displayed. What this means in English is that while you can specify c:\windows\system32\calc.exe multiple times, the Start Menu will only ever honour 1 instance of it. As such, there is a rule that mandates the Start Menu will only display one (1) instance of each shortcut based on the executable path. There is some sort of index process that aggregates these sources together. Easy.Īs with all things Windows 10, there is a surprise in store. Windows will show a nice cleaned combined view. The below image outlines this process in real time, with a folder named James in both my user profile, and then Common Start Menu location. I wrote about this a little more previously here. The Start Menu will combine all results from both of these locations and display a single folder depth (1 folder deep) aggregation of all shortcuts in all folder structures below these directories. The Common users Start Menu Directory %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs This location is also the area where “Tiles” (The right hand side) are pulled from when defining a custom Start Menu Layout.Exception to this being if you define a Mandatory Profile for your users This is pulled from the Default User Profile on the server where the profile is created. The Users profile location %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs.The left-hand side of the Start Menu is made up of two main sources of “shortcuts” This may be well known, and I am simply thick, but here goes the outline. Easy you say (easy I said)….well it is, as long as you understand the limitations and behaviours around how the Start Menu behaves Vs what happens in the file system. “Add a custom folder to the Windows 10 Start Menu”. Here was the simple request spawning from a Citrix Discussions post. We beat the same wall on this with two different heads. Big shout out to James Rankin who was my first point of call for any weird Windows 10 junk that I couldn’t wrap my head around. The latest one for me is all around the creation of custom folders within the Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 Start Menu, a simple request, that has next to nothing documented (that I could find) around the behaviours and expected outcomes. Every corner is odd behaviour or barely documented fun which can lead to a high level of “WTF” moments. The Windows 10 Start Menu is like the gift that keeps giving. ![]()
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