Note
TrayMenu has moved from GitHub to SourceForge.
You can find the latest version of TrayMenu at SourceForge or at the developer's homepage.
The TrayMenu code here at GitHub won't be maintained or updated anymore.
An alternative, freely configurable Start menu for Windows
TrayMenu creates a hierarchical menu from the contents of any folder for quick access to applications, files, scripts, etc. The menu, which is based on the classic folder-based Start menu of earlier versions of Windows, can be accessed via an icon in the taskbar. No administrator rights are required for installation, which means that it can be used on computers with limited user rights.
In my opinion, the folder-based Start menu introduced with Windows 95 was ideal for clearly categorizing all installed applications and frequently used files in one central location and for quick access to them. After Microsoft unfortunately abolished this extremely practical form of the Start menu with Windows 8 and replaced it with a confusing "Start page", thank God there were tools such as "Open-Shell" that brought the classic Start menu back again. Unfortunately, its installation requires administrator rights, so it cannot be used on company computers with limited user rights, for example. There you could at least help yourself with a self-created toolbar, which behaved similarly to a Start menu, except that it could not be opened via the keyboard (Windows key or Ctrl+Esc, but only by clicking in the taskbar. Unfortunately, with the introduction of Windows 11, Microsoft also abolished this last option of creating your own selection menus. With TrayMenu, an alternative is available that doesn't quite come close to the old Start menu, but still fulfills two important criteria: 1.) Any folder contents can be displayed in the form of a hierarchically structured menu, and 2.) it does not require admin rights on the computer.
The source code can be compiled with Visual Studio 2019-2022 (with MSVC and MFC packages). An executable file can be downloaded from SourceForge or from the developer's homepage.
An installation in the usual sense is not necessary; the "TrayMenu.exe" program file can simply be copied to any folder and started from there. A blue 3×3 square icon will appear in the notification area of the task list at the bottom right near the clock:
Unfortunately, this symbol "disappears" after a short time into the "overflow area", which can be opened by clicking on the small arrow pointing up:
To permanently display the TrayMenu icon in the notification area of the taskbar, simply drag it down to the taskbar with the mouse:
A click on the TrayMenu icon or pressing the key combination Ctrl+F1 (changeable) opens the Start menu for selecting the applications and files stored there:
Initially, you may only see a few menu items, e.g. the "Programs" submenu. You can add your own menu entries via Windows Explorer:
A click with the left mouse button on a menu item opens the file or application; a right click on a menu item (file or folder) displays the explorer context menu:
A right-click on the TrayMenu icon opens the context menu through which various settings can be made:
The individual setting options are explained below:
Opens the Start Menu folder in Windows Explorer. Start menu entries can be added, changed, moved or removed there.
Reloads the contents of the Start menu folder so that changed folder contents are also visible in the Start menu.
Another folder can be selected here, the content of which should be displayed in the Start menu:
By default, the personal Start Menu folder (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu) is selected. A new folder can be searched for using "Browse". The program remembers the previously searched folders. They are displayed below and can be quickly selected with a single click. The currently selected folder has a check mark next to it. To remove a folder from the list of remembered folders, simply right-click on the corresponding entry and click "Forget" (as shown in the screenshot above). This also removes all settings made for this folder.
Here you can select which Windows system folders (Desktop or Start menu) should also be included in the Start menu:
Another icon can be selected here, which is to be displayed for the currently selected folder in the taskbar:
The bottom entry displays the folder icon, which can be changed via Windows Explorer (right click on the folder > Properties > Customize > Change icon).
The colors of the menu can be selected and also individually adjusted here:
The following color presets are available by default, which can be changed, deleted or supplemented with your own presets as you wish:
The color presets can be changed via "Customize", saved with "Save" and deleted via right-click + "Delete". If you have "misconfigured" the presets, you can restore them with "Restore presets":
Here you can set that TrayMenu is started automatically when Windows starts:
Selecting the "Add" entry will add TrayMenu to the autostart for the currently selected folder. After selecting another folder (via "Select folder"), this folder can also be added to autostart. Any number of instances of TrayMenu for different folders can be opened at the same time or started automatically with Windows. For better differentiation, a different icon color can be selected for each instance (i.e. for each Start menu).
To remove a Start menu folder from Autostart, simply click on the corresponding "Remove" entry.
Of course, TrayMenu can also be started manually for individual folders. To do this, you can put a shortcut on the desktop (or in any other folder).
Instead of a mouse click, the start menu can also be opened with a key combination. The default is Ctrl+F1, but this can be changed here:
For each instance of TrayMenu (i.e. for each Start menu folder) a separate hotkey can (and should) be defined.
Exports all TrayMenu settings (including autostart) to a .reg file.
The following options apply individually to each Start Menu folder:
This option determines whether the names of certain folders and files are displayed in the original English notation (e.g. "Startup" and "Programs") or in the local language notation (e.g. "Autostart" and "Programme" in German).
This option determines whether folders (submenus) should be displayed first or in alphabetical order along with the files.
If this option is enabled, to open the Start menu it is sufficient to hold the mouse over the tray icon without clicking on it.
With this option enabled, the Start menu opens, when activated via the hotkey, on the left edge of the screen instead of at the tray icon.
Displays the program version and contains a link to access this website:
"Exit" exits TrayMenu, "Close" just closes the menu.
To change a folder icon, right-click the menu folder in Windows Explorer or the menu and choose "Properties > Customize > Change Icon":
If you cannot find a suitable icon there, use "Browse" to select another file, e.g. "%SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll". Icon files (*.ico) can also be selected.
By default, menu items are sorted alphabetically. Individual menu entries can be grouped by creating a text file with the name "traymenu.ini". The groups are visually separated from the other menu items by a menu separator:
The "traymenu.ini" file must be in the same directory or folder as the start menu shortcuts and must be saved in the Unicode character set "UTF-8". This works not only in the root directory of the Start menu, but also in every subdirectory. The "traymenu.ini" file itself is not displayed in the menu. To hide them from other applications as well, the "Hidden" attribute can be set using Windows Explorer (right-click > Properties).
You can easily create menu entries for logging off, shutting down, restarting, etc. using Windows Explorer:
1.) Create a folder called "Shutdown". 2.) Create the following shortcuts in it: Log off (Target: shutdown /l /t 0), Shutdown (Target: shutdown /s /t 0), Reboot (Target: shutdown /r /t 0), Hibernate (Target: shutdown /h /t 0). Optionally, you can also give the folder and the shortcuts nice icons and assign them to a separate group using a traymenu.ini entry, so that the folder is displayed at the bottom of the menu. The folder heading with the warning is simply an appropriately named shortcut to a text file.
With the help of specially named folder shortcuts, the contents of several folders can be merged in the menu. For example, the contents of the two "Programs" folders for all users (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu) and for your own user (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu) are displayed together in the "Programs" submenu. To achieve this, simply use Windows Explorer to create a shortcut to the desired target folder in the menu folder and give this shortcut a name with "target" at the beginning:
In the example above, a shortcut to the folder "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu" named "target - Startmenü (Alle Benutzer)" was created in the personal Start Menu folder. The menu will then show the content of the target folder instead of this shortcut. If folders of the same name already exist there, the contents are added to the existing folders. In the case of files of the same name, the names of the additional files are extended by a consecutive number in brackets. Any number of such "target" links can be created.
To include the Windows system folders "Desktop" and "Start menu" there is the setting "Include" in the "Settings" menu since version 1.1.
- Changed: Reworked Menu "Settings > Menu colors": Custom colors can now be saved as presets.
- Changed the way to "forget" a remembered menu folder: Right-click it in the "Settings > Select folder" menu and select "Forget".
- New: Folder icon can be set as tray icon via "Settings > Tray icon > Folder".
- Changed: Ignore unreadable directories (e.g. junctions).
- New: Show context menu for submenu items with merged folders to select for which folder the Explorer context menu is to be opened.
- New: Ability to group menu items using configuration file "traymenu.ini".
- New: "Export settings" function to save the settings.
- New: Shell (Explorer) context menu now also for folder items.
- New: Show separators between folders and files if option "Folders first" is enabled.
- New: Shell (Explorer) context menu for non-folder items.
- New: Function "Include" to include the Windows system folders "Desktop" and "Start Menu" in the start menu.
- New: Function "Define hotkey" to open the start menu with a key combination.
- New: Option "Open leftmost" to open the start menu at the left edge of the screen instead of at the tray icon when activated via the hotkey.
- First release