28th November 2003, 8:47 PM
ABF, you completely miss what the startmenu's listing of programs actually is. That's nothing more than a list of shortcuts. Further more, Windows itself is NOT creating those shortcuts. The programs themselves are. The shortcuts are nothing. That is to say, the program has nothing at all to do with the shortcut. The shortcut accesses the program, but not the other way around. To say the start menu is not a very effective way to find programs is truth enough, because that's not what it is for. The start menu, and this is very important, is only there to list stuff YOU put in there (whether you are aware of it or not) so you have a convenient box of stuff you want to have quick access to. You can shortcut to non-programs as well, though you probably know this. I myself have a shortcut to a folder on my desktop. Indeed, desktop shortcuts and start menu shorcuts are exactly the same with not a single difference in the history of the cosmos. Sorry for the extreme wording there, but I had to really punch it through to ya. It's merely a list of shortcuts to programs that you or a program itself puts there. It's not a directory windows itself updates or ever actually adds to. (There are exceptions to this, but let's say that this is an absolute, just like when teaching kids about math you have to start with false statements to work up to the big truths, like saying "0 is not a number".)
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)