Change Windows 7 start menu height depending on monitor size?

I know I can change the height of the Windows 7 Start Menu so that includes more or fewer recently used apps, etc.

But I have a netbook with a tiny screen that I plug into a decent sized LCD most of the time at home.

Is there a way to get Win7 to use a taller Start menu with more items when I'm using the LCD and a shorter Start menu with fewer items when using the netbook's built in screen?

(I'm a programmer so capable of technical solutions if there's no ready-made solution.)

hippietrail

Posted 2012-12-18T04:58:31.673

Reputation: 3 699

Answers

When you change the 2 Start menu size values here:

What changes are these 2 values:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"Start_MinMFU"=dword:0000000a
"Start_JumpListItems"=dword:0000000a

You can simply create .REG files or even batch files that use the reg command to change the values as required.

Karan

Posted 2012-12-18T04:58:31.673

Reputation: 51 857

I can certainly make my own little tool by combining the details @magicandre1981 provided in his answer about the resolution change even with the details you've provided about the registry keys - thanks. – hippietrail – 2012-12-18T05:40:05.037

1You're welcome, and maybe you can share the app and source on GitHub or elsewhere and add the link here. (BTW, I used Process Monitor to locate the reg keys. Fantastic utility as are all the rest in the SysInternals suite - never leave home without 'em! :) – Karan – 2012-12-18T05:58:37.797

Looking into programming languages right now (-; – hippietrail – 2012-12-18T06:02:05.067

I thought you had everything at hand! If you're gonna go to the trouble of looking into programming languages, identifying one, downloading the compiler/tool chain and then hacking something together, why not simply create batch files and shortcuts? Of course, it's always fun to do these little projects, so you might want to check out .NET/C# for this, along with the Visual Studio Express programs.

– Karan – 2012-12-18T06:13:42.993

Basically I haven't fiddled with this stuff since the plain C Win32 API was most used. Since those days I was mostly in Perl then JavaScript due to my interest in cross-platform projects. Now I have to see if I should take up C# or if it's still possible in C... or even an excuse to teach myself some node.js or Python if they are up to such low-level shenanigans (-: – hippietrail – 2012-12-18T06:24:07.900

Create your own tool which handles the screen resolution change and changes the amount of displayed recent items in the registry with your tool.

magicandre1981

Posted 2012-12-18T04:58:31.673

Reputation: 86 560

Do you know what bits of the registry would be relevant and if changes would be reflected immediately? – hippietrail – 2012-12-18T05:21:04.243

I don't know the key, but use http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/reg_file_from_application.html to monitor the Explorer.exe, make the changes in the UI and the Tool tells you which keys were modified.

– magicandre1981 – 2012-12-18T05:24:18.213