This seems to get harder and harder to do with each edition of Windows. I might be missing something, but at least in XP, you could right click the Start button and get “Open” or “Open All Users” to browse the Start menu in Explorer. In Windows 7 these options have disappeared. In Windows 8, the Startup folder no longer appears on the Start screen.
In addition, in Windows 7 and 8, the Startup folders appear in these two hard-to-find and non-intuitive locations (a big change from XP):
- The all users startup folder which used to be in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu, got moved to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp.
- The user’s own startup folder which used to be in %userprofile%\Start Menu, got moved to %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
I’m sure MS had a reason for moving these folders around – but they just made it harder to get to this folder, and Windows 8 exacerbates this by taking the Startup folder out of the Start screen. There is a Startup tab in the Task Manager, which lets you enable and disable startup shortcuts or registry keys. But, you can’t add entries. Another missed opportunity.
