Tuesday's Tech Tip: Pin stuff to your Start menu

Let me be frank, people: I've seen your desktops and they are even more cluttered and messy than your real desktops.

Cluttered? Messy? I've given it some more thought and cluttered and messy isn't sufficiently accurate. I'm going to use words like apalling and landfill-like.

We're going to spend some of these Tuesday's Tech Tips on cleaning up your Windows XP and Vista desktops.

We're gonna start with, well, your Start menu. That's what the red arrow is pointing at in the image below (you can click on it to enlarge).













Take a second to look at that desktop. What don't you see on it? How about:

1. Install programs for stuff I already installed
2. Desktop shortcuts for programs
3. Files that I don't actually need immediate access to

For now, let's focus on programs you use frequently. If you look at the top of the Start menu in the above image, you'll see four such programs above the horizontal line -- Firefox, Outlook, iTunes and TomTom Home.

They are pinned to the top of my Start menu. They are always above that line. Let's clean that up your pinned items on your Start menu.

1. Open your Start menu
2. Right-click on the icon of any program you don't use or only use rarely
3. A context-sensitive menu opens. Click on "Unpin from Start menu"

Do this for any program currently pinned that you don't use or don't use often. Now we need to pin any programs that you do use often.

1. Open your Start menu.
2. Go to "All Programs" and right click on any program you use frequently.
3. A context-sensitive menu opens. Click on "Pin to Start menu".

Now your Start menu has pinned programs that you use often and that's it. Delete the shortcuts for these programs from your desktop (click on the shortcut icon on your desktop and click the "Delete" button or manually drag it into your trashcan).

That's it. In future Tech Tips I'll show you how to use your quick launch bar (the little area to the right of the Start button), how to clean up your notification area (the area to the far right that has the little clock in it) and how to continue cleaning up your desktop.