Run Programs from My Computer

I'm all for any customization that makes things easier. There are some programs that I use over and over again, and I want a nice, easy place from which to run them. The Quick Launch toolbar is nice, as is the list of frequently-used programs on the Start menu.


I want a place where I can put system-oriented commands, though, so I put those commands on My Computer's shortcut menu. Then I can place the My Computer icon on the desktop and those commands are one mouse click away. To show the My Computer icon on the desktop:
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Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Show on Desktop.

To add commands to My Computer's shortcut menu, you need to edit its class registration, which is HKCR\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} in the registry. Add the command to this key's shell subkey. For example, after installing Tweak UI, one of the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP, I like to add a command to My Computer's shortcut menu that opens Tweak UI.

To do this, I add the branch tweak\command to My Computer's class registration. I set the default value of tweak to Tweak UI, the menu item text, and the default value of command to C:\Windows\System32\Tweakui.exe, the path and file name of Tweak UI. Figure 1 shows what this looks like in the registry.

After customizing the class registration for My Computer, starting Tweak UI is fast:
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Right-click My Computer, and then click Tweak UI.

The following .inf file automates this setting. First install Tweak UI. Then save this script to the file Tweakui.inf, right-click the file, and then click Install. (To save this script to an .inf file, open Notepad, copy the script and paste it into Notepad, and save the file as Tweakui.inf. In the Save as type box, be sure to click All Files.) Alternatively, download Listing 4-2 from the Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide Group.