Can't Create Shortcut on Start Menu

[saa00_2000]

I've configured the install as follows in the shortcut tab:

Name                                                 Target File                                                             Destination Directory

C-TAP 2.0                                          [Progam Files]\C-Tap 2.0\C-Tap 2.8.98.exe        [Start Menu]

The shortcut, however, does not appear in the Start Menu. It does appear in the [Start>>Programs] and can be selected from there.

What am I missing?

[Ray.R]

With Windows-XP, it is usually located in:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu

or

C:\Documents and Settings\your_username\Start Menu

But Not within the "Programss" folder.

As you already know, you place a shortcut pointing to the sw location. 

When you mention the folder [Start Menu], did you mean "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu"?

JLV

[Mert_A.]

Hello,

[Start Menu] and [Start>>Programs] install your shortcut file to Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu and Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs, respectively.  The difference is that installing it to the Programs directory will add it to the bottom of the list of programs, whereas installing it to the Start Menu directory directly just puts the shortcut in a more visible location at the top of the list, above a separator.

Presumably, you were hoping to add your shortcut to the start menu alongside the most commonly used programs.  Unfortunately, there are a couple reasons this is not done.  Microsoft did not want the top of the start menu to become polluted by 3rd-party applications installing shortcuts there, so they made the "pin to start menu" implementation very obscure.  It uses a couple binary registry values, for which the format is not documented.  This way, only the user can easily decide what does or doesn't appear there.  The other point is that these start menu settings are per-user, whereas CVI-built installers aim at per-machine installations.

I hope this clears things up.  Sorry for the confusion.

Mert A.
National Instruments

[saa00_2000]

Yes, in Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu, and the shortcut is present in that directory but does not appear on the Start Menu itself.

[saa00_2000]

I thank you for your response and now I understand. I did find the shortcut on the top of the program list.

In previous versions the shortcut did appear on the Start Menu itself, and I was therefore expecting it to appear there in 8.0 also.

I appreciate your quick response.

Sincerely,

Steve Ayers

[Mert_A.]

Hello Steve,

Actually, CVI has always installed shortcuts in the same way.  What has changed is the way that Windows handles shortcuts installed in the Start Menu folder.  Namely, in Windows 2000, these shortcuts were shown at the top of the start menu, not in the Programs submenu.  With the introduction of the "most commonly used" list in the XP start menu, the Start Menu shortcuts got moved to the top of the programs submenu.  In XP, if you change your start menu properties to use the "classic" start menu, you'll see the same behavior that you saw on 2000.

Mert A.
National Instruments

[Ray.R]

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@Mert A. wrote:
In XP, if you change your start menu properties to use the "classic" start menu, you'll see the same behavior that you saw on 2000.

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Thanks Mert,

I forgot... I always change the properties to use the "classic" start menu when using XP.