Customize Windows Vista & 7 Start Menu & TaskBar with Registry Hacks.

Type regedit in Vista's start menu search box and hit enter to open the registry editor.

Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Here you will see a lot of DWORD valuenames.

To customize your start menu options, you have to modify the DWORD value data and set it to either 0 or 1. To modify the value data, you rt click on the name and select modify. Then in the value data box, you set its numeric value.

Setting the value of respective DWORD to 1, means that it will have the effect as described in the Value Name.

Setting the value of respective DWORD to 0, means that it will have the OPPOSITE effect as described in the Value Name. If the DWORD ValueNames do not exist, you will have to create them. To create them, rt click in any blank space in RHS Panel > New >Dword value. The following are some of the recognized DWORD ValueNames. NoTrayItemsDisplay : Hides the Task Bar notification area NoToolbarsOnTaskbar : Do not display any custom toolbars in the taskbar QuickLaunchEnabled : Enable QuickLaunch bar display in the TaskBar NoSimpleStartMenu : Disabling it will force the Classic Start Menu NoStartMenuPinnedList : Remove Pinned Programs list from the Start Menu NoStartMenuMorePrograms : Remove “All Programs” list from the Start menu NoStartMenuMyGanes : Remove Games from Start Menu NoStartMenuMyMusic : Remove Music from Start Menu NoStartMenuNetworkPlaces : Remove Network from Start Menu NoTaskGrouping : Prevent grouping of Task Bar items HideClock : Hides from the Task Bar notification area NoSMBalloonTip : Remove Balloon Tips on Start Menu items NoAutoTrayNotify : Turn off Task Bar area cleanup notification LockTaskbar : Lock the Taskbar and prevents the User from moving or resizing it NoSearchCommInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Communications. NoSearchProgramsInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Programs. NoSearchInternetInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Internet History NoSearchFilesInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Files This list is not exhaustive. You can simply study the registry key's DWORD's, illustrated above and see that there would be many more such tweaks or hacks available. The ValueNames are roughly indicative of what they would do. Take the example of NoRun. Its value is set at 0. If you open Taskbar & Start Menu Properties > Star Menu Tab > Start Menu > Customize. You will see a checkbox to Add Run command to the Start Menu. But if you now go back to regedit, and change the DWORD of NoRun to 1, and now go back to the Start Menu properties box, you will see that the item to Add Run itself will be missing ! So, enabling or disabling such options through Vista Registry, will allow or prohibits users, from executing such actions through the Properties box.