How To Create Application Short Cuts On Your Start Menu

I love the word customize. It implies that all of your preferences are met. I don’t believe in the one-size-fits-all, off the shelf mentality. Customization, custom trading computers – yup, you got it. That’s my wheel house.

Without the ability to customize certain areas of our lives, we are left having to try and fit ourselves into these situations, rather than the situation, product, or service fit our preferences. Imagine a restaurant with only one menu item. All cars having immovable seats. Options allow us to choose what aligns with our preferences.

I happily take advantage of any situation that allows me to customize my experience. My trading computer is definitely one of those.

As traders, we spend lots of time on our trading computers. Our computer is how we get stuff done. Features like applications, icons, and short cuts are meant to be custom to how you use your trading computer.

1. Navigate down to the Start Menu in the lower left corner.
2. Left click on the Start Menu icon.
3. Next, navigate to the program that you want to use frequently.
4. Then go to all programs and left click on all programs. You’ll see all the programs available to you on your computer.
5. Now mouse over to the application that you use frequently. In this case, I’ll use my Internet browser Mozilla Firefox as an example.
6. Right-click on the application icon.
7. The next thing that you’ll see in the grey contextual menu is “pin to Start Menu”. Left click on “pin to Start Menu”.
8. Now mouse down to the bottom of the Start Menu and click back. Now you’ll see that Mozilla Firefox is pinned to the Start Menu.

Remove Application Short Cuts from Your Trading Computer Start Menu

This can be done in one simple step:

1. Left click on the Mozilla Firefox icon and select unpin from Start Menu. Now that we’ve unpinned it, it no longer appears here.

Let’s just use another example so you can see it once more.

1. Go to all programs and left click.
2. Next, I’ll find the application I want. In this case, let’s say that I want to use Tradestation.
3. So I click on Tradestation, at least the folder. Now I see Tradestation 9.1 is located here under the folder. Now I will right-click on the Tradestation application icon and click pin to Start Menu.

I am going to click back now and I can see that Tradestation appears at the top of my Start Menu.

Adjust The Order Of The Application List on Your Start Menu

You can actually customize these a great deal more if you want to. You can hold down your mouse and drag them up or down in the order of the menu. Maybe you want to prioritize your most often used applications at the top and the applications that aren’t used as much at the bottom. So with this tip you’ll be able to save yourself a lot of time from having to navigate through all your programs.

The last thing that I would mention is if you don’t want to have some of these default applications appear in the second half or the lower half of the Start Menu you can just unpin them using the same routine.

There are more trading computer tips like this in our buyers guide. Check out our “How To Buy a Trading Computer” e-book.

We hope today’s Quick Tip helped you. You can always call us if you have questions: 800-387-5250