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re: Start menu error message Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 5:21 am Posted by indivisible (3 messages posted) If you look at your start menu you will see that the left side has shortcuts to commonly used programs. You have too many programs trying to display and this is generating the message you're getting. If you right click the start menu > properties > start menu tab > customise > general tab. Under "Programs" you can select the number of items to be remembered and displayed. I believe this number does not take "pinned items" into account. Meaning that you can choose to pin as many items to the upper half (above the divide) by dragging shortcuts there and then have x shortcuts remembered below. You are getting this message because the combined pinned items and remembered programs are too many to be displayed at once on the start menu. You should remove some pinned items, decrease the number of remembered or you can increase the space you have to work with by making the icons smaller (option on the same tab as the previous). On Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 5:00 am, will2 wrote: >After losing my hard-disk and re-installing Windows, soon after I must have done >something wrong (I forget what!) because now when clking on 'Start', I sometimes >get an annoying msg: "Some items cannot be shown" The msg followed on with something >like too many items in Start menu, need to 'unbind items' - except now I can't reproduce >the problem when I want to ! When I clk on 'Start', the popup shows 12 icons, less >than than I used to have befire re-installation. I have 19GB of free space on C: [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Start menu error message Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 11:07 am Posted by will2 (3 messages posted) Thanks for help. Sorry, it's a laptop, and screen damage covers most of the bottom left corner, so when I clk 'Start', I cannot see 'Properties'; I can tell there are 9 lines of items, but only the names of the top 3: Open, Explore, Add to VLC Media.. are identifiable. Is there an alternative access to the 'start menu > properties > start menu tab > customise > general tab' you recommend ? - when I do clk on Start>Open... the focus moves into an explorer screen ...>Start Menu>Programs>Startup - and at the same level are a few programs I don't need at Startup, eg 'The KMPlayer' and XMediaRecode. I see they just contain Shortcuts, so ok to delete them ? Likewise an empty 'Administrative Tools' folder ? I am surprised 12 icons 'on the left side' is too many - as previously mentioned, its a newish install, and previously I had more icons on left side. The 'left side' has NO 'divide'. The right side has a 'divide' below the 8th icon, and 3 icons below that: 'Help & Support', Search, and Run If you know of an alternate access to customise>general tab, when I get there, will it be clear which are the 'pinned' items, and 'remembered items' ? On Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 5:21 am, indivisible wrote: >If you look at your start menu you will see that the left side has shortcuts to commonly >used programs. You have too many programs trying to display and this is generating >the message you're getting. >If you right click the start menu > properties > start menu tab > customise > general >tab. >Under "Programs" you can select the number of items to be remembered and displayed. >/> >I believe this number does not take "pinned items" into account. Meaning that you >can choose to pin as many items to the upper half (above the divide) by dragging >shortcuts there and then have x shortcuts remembered below. >You are getting this message because the combined pinned items and remembered programs >are too many to be displayed at once on the start menu. You should remove some pinned >items, decrease the number of remembered or you can increase the space you have to >work with by making the icons smaller (option on the same tab as the previous). > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Start menu error message Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 1:00 pm Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) Not being able to see part of your screen is information which would have been useful earlier !! Anyway, drag your Taskbar to the top of the screen and you'll be able to see Properties when you right click on the Start button. If it won't drag, right click on it and uncheck Lock the Taskbar. May I also respectfully suggest you also stick to fixing one issue at a time - in this case the number of items you can see in you start list - as your post is getting a bit complex and replies will be addressing various different issues. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Start menu error message Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 3:48 pm Posted by will2 (3 messages posted) Many thanks for your help: As r-clking on 'Start' produces the said list of 9 items of which only Open, Explore, and 'Add to VLC Media.. are identifiable, and the Task Bar was locked, so looked like I was stumped. However, I r-clked on the right side of Taskbar, was able to go 'Taskbar & Start Menu Properties', clkd 'Customise' Then got a 2 tab window called 'Customize Start Menu' the 'General' tab - giving in the top 2 panels choice of Large|Small icons, adjust no. of programs on Start menu - currently 20, and in lower panel Internet & Email Un-ticked. Have upped the 20 to 30 and will monitor the result, which may be a while as the error msg was intermittent. Thankyou. I am curious as to what I did in first place to cause this msg, and so then looked in the 'Advanced' tab of same Window, see that My docs, My Music, My Network Places, My Pics all unticked - so no memory used, BUT : System Admin Tools is set to 'Display on the All Programs and Start Menus' - which rings a bell... I think I visited here shortly after the re-install and ticked this ... so maybe this item is using much memory and caused the msg ? Do you recall its default setting (options are All Programs' or 'don't display') ? On Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 1:00 pm, MartinM wrote: > >Not being able to see part of your screen is information which would have been useful >earlier !! > >Anyway, drag your Taskbar to the top of the screen and you'll be able to see Properties >when you right click on the Start button. If it won't drag, right click on it and >uncheck Lock the Taskbar. > >May I also respectfully suggest you also stick to fixing one issue at a time - in >this case the number of items you can see in you start list - as your post is getting >a bit complex and replies will be addressing various different issues. > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum