In the past, I’ve written a tip on how to organize your Windows Start Menu and it’s one of my favorite tips – I use it religiously after I’ve installed a new program on my machine.
Enter iTunes.
The problem is, every time iTunes is updated (and why isn’t Apple patching instead of making us install the entire 60+MB program again and again…) it creates a new shortcut in the Start Menu, along with a shortcut to Quicktime. Worse yet, the “old” shortcuts (the one’s that I’ve moved) don’t work anymore!!
To combat this, I’m following the “More than Twice” rule: If you do an operation more than twice, then you should create a script for it.
Project Goals
To achieve this crazy voodoo, we’re going to create another batch file. This script will do a few things:
- Copy shortcuts to iTunes and Quicktime to the All Users Media Start Menu folder.
- Copy a shortcut to iTunes into the current user’s Quick Launch.
- Delete the iTunes and Quicktime directories from the Start Menu.
Now, we could create the script to move, as opposed to copy these items, but I like to have a little assurance that the files are actually where they need to be before I delete them.
Automatically Update the iTunes Start Menu Shortcut
To learn how to create a batch file, please review the post “How To Create a Batch File“.
The code is commented so it should be self-explanatory. Though, if you have any questions, leave a comment on this post and I’ll answer it for you!
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@echo off
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REM ***copy the iTunes shortcut to the "Media" folder and the current user’s Quicklaunch***
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xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\iTunes\iTunes.lnk" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Media\" /Y
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xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\iTunes\iTunes.lnk" "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\" /Y
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REM ***copy the Quicktime shortcut to the "Media" folder***
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xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\QuickTime\QuickTime Player.lnk" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Media\" /Y
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REM ***Delete the iTunes and Quicktime folders from the Start menu***
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rd "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\iTunes" /s/q
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rd "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\QuickTime" /s/q
Download
You can download the raw code – you must save the file with a .bat extension.
Options
If you’d like to change the Start Menu folder locations or names, you can do so on lines 3 and 7.
Good script! That is extremely irritating… Maybe it’s a hint… “Switch to Mac!”
That “More than Twice” rule that you mention sure sounds like a rule that would pay off quite quickly. There are many tasks that we do repeatedly, and if we put in the effort to create a small file to handle the procedure, time would be saved, and one could later release the file for others as well. Showing the code used is also a plus.
Armen, you’re absolutely right – even if the time saved is a minute, it’s much faster to accomplish a task by using a double-click!
I can\’t believe no one has made that point yet!!! Good work on really nailing down the correct approach. I\’m going to link to this from my blog roll, ok?