Disable Start Menu

[mwfuss]

Is anyone able to suggest a way to permanently disable the Start Menu button from appearing on the taskbar on Windows XP? I have been using the program StartKiller from Tordex to do this, but there seem to be some issues between this program and Dexpot [when I change desktops, the Start Menu button reappears on the taskbar for the newly accessed desktop]. I never use the Start Menu and I think that it would be great to be able to remove it altogether. Some may think this request strange, but it just comes down to a matter of personal preference and my preference is to disable the Start Menu. My thanks in advance to anyone who proves to be of assistance.

[jazper]

Pretty simple to do actually in a few lines of code.

This is delphi code to do it:

Code: (delphi)

    FHandle := FindWindowEx(windows.FindWindow('Shell_TrayWnd', ''), 0, 'Button', nil); // find the Start Button
    ShowWindow(FHandle, SW_SHOW); // visible
    ShowWindow(FHandle, SW_HIDE);  // not visible

I could throw this code in a "service" application that would always run and check to see if it's visible, and if it is set it to Hide....what you think?

[mwfuss]

jazper,

That would wonderful. I am not a programmer and I would not know where to begin on my own.

[jgpaiva]

I think this is even one of the options in gpedit.msc..
[edit] apparently, it isn't [/edit]

[Carol Haynes]

I haven't played with AHK for a while but looking at the Delphi fragment above that looks like something that would be very easily acheivable with an AHK script - and you could have a hotkey to toggle START on and off when you need it. The compiled AHK script could simply be added to your Startup group.

[jazper]

Here you go: http://jazper.dcmembers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/disablestart.zip

EDIT: I took Carol's idea for hotkeys and made a change.  Shift+Ctl+E will Hide the Start Button, Shift+Ctl+D will Show theStart button. The link above has the new changes in it.



This is *not* a service application. What you should do is put it in your StartUp group so when you log in,it'll launch and run in the background.  There is no GUI. It runs as "DisableStart.exe"

I only tested this on XP SP2


j.

[mwfuss]

Thank you jazper, I will try it out as soon as I have the opportunity.

[dandersahn]

jazper,  Did you use AHK to create that?  If so, would you mind posting the AHK script code?

Does anyone know if it is possible to not only hide the start button, but remove the space as well (like StartKiller does)?

Also, does anyone know if that works on Vista?