After working out something particularly tricky earlier I was soooooo proud of myself that I wrote a quick guide and thought I'd share it with you twunts. With this in mind, I've started a Pro Tips thread so that our other resident nerds can post any weird Windows tricks in here.

I'm particularly proud of this one because as far as I can tell, nobody has managed it before (or at least not documented it)

Symbolic Links in XP Start Menu's

Basically, I wanted a folder in my start menu that actually showed the contents of a folder on a different drive (I keep a lot of random stand-alone exe files on my D: drive and get bored navigating to them so I wanted a dynamically updating folder in my start menu to cope with it. I came up with this:


1. Right-click your Start Menu, select "Explore" and navigate to the Programs folder (this folder contains all of the shortcuts to programs in your start menu)

2. Create a folder called something like "My Archive"

3. Download a program called "Junction Link Magic" from http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm and install it.

4. Run LinkMagic and once it finishes it's "scan" you need to select your Junction Point (this is where the "pretend" folder is. In this example it would be "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\My Archive"

5. Next select the destination, which will be the folder on your other drive.

6. Create the Junction Link.

and BOSCH! There you go, when you browse to the My Archive folder in your start menu you'll actually see the contents of the target folder instead.


You like? It's basically a hatchet job of Windows Junction Points, you could use a similar trick to move your entire Program Files folder to another drive:

1. Move the Program Files folder to the destination drive.
2. Create a new empty Program Files folder where the old one was.
3. Create a Junction Link between the two.

BINGO! Windows has no idea you've just robbed it of it's delicious programs on the C: drive.

Note though, I guess "some" Windows software could object.

Oh, I suppose this might work with USB drives with applications on as well.

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Or, if you want to do it easier without other software, right click on target folder or drive and create shortcut. on drives it will say, "i can't do it here, would you like it on the desktop instead."

click ok

rename shortcut to whatever you want

drag icon onto start menu, which will expand, drag it over programs, which will expand, and drop it down anywhere in your list.


in essence, create shortcut, drag and drop to programs.

edit: as i reread your post, i see the difference, yours opens the folder in the menu showing contents, basic shortcuts just gives you the folder.

so yeah, yours is better...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dwaggy
Thats alot of words for someone that sells DVDs out of the back of a truck

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Yeah, it's hard to explain what it actually does but the easiest way to describe it is... At allows you to create a pointer to a folder in a different location but it still behaves like any other folder instead of it being a static shortcut - I've added one for my download folder so I can effectively browse my downloads from the start menu without opening any extra windows.

It's one of those things where you really need to do it to appreciate how useful it could be and wonder why Windows doesn't just "do it" like Unix does.

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