Boost XP lets you customize the Windows Start Menu. It is available in two flavors.

Classic Start Menu
Windows XP Style Menu. (Available in Windows XP Only)

Classic Start Menu

Show Admin Tools - Shows the Administrative tools in Windows Start Menu.
Show Run - Shows / Hides the Run Command in Start menu.
Cascade Control Panel - Shows a simple control panel or in a Menu Style. When Checked Control Panel will show its contents in a Menu Style.
Cascade My Documents - Shows the contents of My Documents in Menu Style.
Cascade My Pictures - Shows the contents of My Pictures in Classical Style.
Cascade Printers - Shows the printers installed on your System in Menu Style.

Windows XP Style Start Menu

This option is available only in Windows XP and above. You can show various items, hide them or cascade them. Cascading means that the item will show its contents in a popup menu Style.

Besides these Start menu also provides the following functionalities

Highlight Newly installed Programs : Windows XP have a option to highlight newly installed programs. Newly installed programs appears with light brown background.
Sort Start Menu : Start Menu becomes cluttered when you install a lot of programs. This option sort the Start menu in alphabetical order.
Scroll Start Menu - When Start Menu has lot of items it tends to occupy whole screen. When this options is selected Start Menu appears has scroll buttons at top and bottom which will make it slide. It occupies less space.
Show Small icons in Start Menu - Shows large or big icons in start menu.
Hide All Program Button (Windows XP) - When selected Start Menu will hide the All Programs Button. It will limit your ability to view installed Programs.

Start Menu Cleaner

Start Menu stores lot of hidden information within itself. You may clean it from here

Recent Documents : Shortcut to recently opened files.
Search History : It contains the searches made by you.
Run MRU : Any programs you run from Start Menu
Recent Programs : Windows Store all the programs you Run with their date and time.

Select these options and press Clear checked. Alternatively to clear more traces on your system just press Clean up most used traces.

Task Bar Options

Boost XP lets you customize Windows Taskbar. It has many tools as follows :

Taskbar Fader

Taskbar fader is available only on Windows 2000/XP. It lets you make Windows taskbar transparent. Transparent Taskbar looks nice. Just press the activate Button and then scroll the slider. Though when slider needle is in middle it is best as it gives you a semi transparent look.

Quick Launch Manager

Windows 98 and above have quick launch bar on Start Menu. Boost XP lets you manage it. You can add remove buttons on it.

Other Customizations

Disable Taskbar context menu : Disables the menu on the right click on task bar. (Not Recommended except if your computer is used by many people).
Group similar taskbar buttons : Windows XP lets you group similar buttons. Like if you have two instances Windows Explorer running. They will show as a single button. When you click on it will show a menu to select an instance. This is nice option and saves precious taskbar space.
Auto Hide inactive Icons : Hides the inactive System Tray icons (icons left side of clock). Thus you can save more space by hiding inactive icons in System Tray.

Desktop Options

Desktop option is divided in two parts.

Desktop Settings
Change Wallpaper

Desktop Settings

You can customize Windows Desktop directly from Boost XP. Desktop Settings option lets you fine tune Windows Desktop.

Change Theme (Windows XP) : Brings up Change Theme Box. You can select the theme and press the apply button to apply the selected theme.
Change Resolution : Tweak you display settings here.
Change Screen Saver : Apply a different screen saver or tune up your screen saver settings from here.

Desktop Icons

You can show hide desktop icons from here. To turn off all the icons select hide desktop icons. It will hide all the icons on the desktop.

Windows XP also has a very neat feature. You can show transparent icon text. It makes your windows desktop looks nice.

Change Wallpaper

Boost XP includes a very nice feature. Change wallpaper. You can add a list of your favorite images in the list box by pressing add. Boost XP includes a separate module which will periodically change the wallpaper and do other tasks.

Add the images to the list box. Images formats currently supported are JPEG, GIF, BMP.
Select the method of Wallpaper Display. It could be tile, stretch or center.
Set the wallpaper.
You can also start Wallpaper service. It will allow you to change the wallpaper every few minutes specified by you.
You can also specify a sound that is to be played when wallpaper is to be changed.

Visual Effects

Windows includes a lot of visual effects. They look good but sometimes they can even bring fastest daemons to their knees. They look good but Windows takes extra CPU time to paint them. You can enable or disable these effects selectively.

Show Menu Animation Effect : When you right click anywhere on Screen a menu pops up. The menu pop ups in animated way. This takes time. Though it looks good but not recommended.

Show Menu Fading Effect : Same as above. But menu before popping up fades up and fades down when ending. It takes a lot of CPU resources.

Show Windows Content While Dragging : When you move a window either it contents should be seen or only a border line should be there. You could enable or disable them selectively.

Enable Windows Animation : Windows animate your programs when you maximize, minimize or restore them. Again animation has its load on CPU.

Show Translucent Rectangle : When you select anything in Windows Explorer they are painted in blue. When this option is selected they become semi-transparent. (Recommended on).

Show Combo Box Animation : Combo Box slides it contents when clicked.

Start Menu Delay Effect : When you click on any item in Start Menu which shows submenu like Programs a delay is there. You can safely disable this delay.

Show Shadow Under Mouse Pointer : Shows a shadow under mouse pointer. Highly recommended.

Slide Taskbar Buttons : Slides the taskbar buttons when the programs are opened or closed. Looks good but puts a load on CPU.

Default Effects - Loads the default windows settings.

No Effects - Disable the Effects for speed.

Show Balloon Tips : Windows have a feature to show nice big Balloon tips. Again looks good. With new features this is highly recommended.

Use Common Task in Explorer (Windows XP) : Windows Explorer has a nice feature in Explorer which Shows Common Task in Windows Explorer. Recommended ON.

Short Cut Arrows Tweaks

Shortcut with Arrow : Windows puts a small arrow on all shortcuts. It makes good to identify them. Highly Recommended.
Shortcut with Shortcut To: Windows always puts Shortcut To on all the shortcuts. It makes it easy to identify them. Recommended.

Font Smoothing Tweaks

This is a must tweak and always be enabled. Windows lets you show smooth edges of fonts. It makes them looks good on screen. Windows XP besides normal font smoothing also has a new smoothing Clear Type. Boost XP also lets you configure font smoothing. You can make the font appear more dark or light. Just adjust the slider to set this.

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Start Menu Options