Ever since the days of Windows XP, Windows users have had to deal with the irritating (in my opinion) feature of having their newly installed programs to become highlighted in the Start Menu. Of course, there are viable and realistic reasons for having this feature, users may have quite a few programs installed on their PC and may not want to go hunting around for that new program in their Start Menu folder. Fair enough. This feature may have been needed in the days of XP; however, as the days of XP have started to fade away and finding files and folders through instant searches becomes more reliable, this feature has probably become as outdated as XP itself has.
Thankfully, Microsoft has realized (even since XP) that not everyone wants to use this feature and they made it fairly easy to turn it off. So, if you’re like me and don’t want to see your new programs highlighted in the Start Menu, you can try this tip to change that.
Right click on the Windows Taskbar–or Superbar, if you’re really into Windows 7 terminology–and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
In the dialog box that appears, click on the Start Menu tab and then the Customize button.
In the next dialog box, scroll down until you find the item labeled Highlight newly installed programs. Check or uncheck this depending upon your preference (unchecking it will remove this feature, of course).
That’s it. Now when you install a new program, you should not have to deal with the extra highlighting in your Start Menu. If you have a Windows 7 Tip that you want me to discuss, or you have any questions, feel free to let me know!
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