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Deleting from start up menu and desktop

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I am a student in a networking program, as part of our training we install and network for the school. On or our insructors wants nothing on the desktop and only Programs on the Start Menu. How do I accomplish this? Thanks for all your help. It's been better than the text books so far!!!!

16 replies

by lord ago 1

I think your best (and easiest) bet would be use TweakUI2000. You can find it at www.nonags.com and most likely a host of other places. This will remove and/or put back just about everything you have. Control Panel, Settings, Documents, and the whole lot. It will give you a bunch of other features as well. NOTE: watch what you change!!

Have Fun!!!
Lord Ago 1

by joe

Right click on desktop, go to properties,EFFECTS. check hide icons when desktop is viewed as web page, than go to WEB tab and check View my desktop as a web page.

by mm212

Use policy editor. On the Windows CD it is called Poledit. When you start it, just select the default template and you can disable just about anything in the Windows interface. Just keep in mind that there are MANY different settings so it may take a while to find the ones you want to change.

by thechas

Answer 4 is your best bet.

Especially if your instructor does not want ANYTHING except for Programs on the start menu.

As far as I know, tweakUI will not let you eliminate everything on the start menu.

Alternately, you can dig into the registry, and manually edit out the desktop and start menu items.

Before deciding on an action plan, I would attempt to get a better idea of what your instructor is looking for.

The lesson appears to be "How to Lock the Desktop"

Does he want youto learn to use Policy editor?
(best for multiple systems on a network)
Regedit? (a good tool to know, but time consuming for this task on a large number of machines)
TweakUI, and setting the wallpaper options are only temporary fixes. They acheive the visual results, but may not stop a user from changing the settings.

Chas

by joseph moore

I agree with TheChas in that what your instructor has asked for means a lot more than just clicking a few checkboxes.
TweakUI will NOT remove everything. It does some things (like Network Neighborhood and My Documents) but not the full cleansing you are asking for.
Go ahead and start with it.

Next, go here for a manual Registry tweak that will lock down the system:
http://is-it-true.org/nt/registry/rtips48.shtml

This page also has links to individual Desktop lockdown features (hiding My Computer,) and Start menu stuff (hiding Control Panel) that you will also need.

Running Policy Editor should be able to hide everything, but that, as mentioned, might be beyond the scope of your instructor's instructions.

The last thing is, Ibelieve there is no way to hide the Help option in Win9x. Win2K/XP we were able to hide Help, but in NT and 9x, Help did not have a Registry-hiding tweak. So, keep that in mind. Using a fake Help file was the old solution to this. Here is a URL on that one:
http://is-it-true.org/nt/atips/atips291.shtml

Lastly, if you want to really get serious, then you can set up a Windows machine in "kiosk" mode, where nothing is visible except for a few programs. This is the public computer mode, where users can't do ANYTHING. Technet article Q198771 talks about it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q198771

Please remove any spaces in the URLs.

hope this helps

by dmiles

There are a number of ways to accomplish this
In Windows 98 you can use MSCONFIG,typed in Run boxx after clicking on Start

1)During install of the application you can deselect the options to place in Start menu or on Desk Top

2)After installation you can Click on Start->Settings->Task Bar and Start menu,click on the Advanced tab,you will see the option to Add or Remove items from the Start Menu

3)You can reference the article How To Remove Desktop Icons Using the Msbatch.Inf File
see:
1)http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q239006

2)www.annoyances.org/cgi-bin/ce-showtopic/002_012

by ranch-hand

Thanks everyone. Poledit seems to be the only way to accomplish taking the Help out of Start Menu. Any ideas or steps on how to do that one?

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