Adding to the Start Menu

Applications can use the shell dynamic data exchange interface to add items to the Programs submenu of the Start menu, just as they would use it to add items to a group in Program Manager in earlier versions of Windows. However, this is not the recommended method to use with the Windows NT® version 4.0 and Windows® 95 operating systems.

To add an item to the Programs submenu, create a shell link using the IShellLink interface. Add the link file (.LNK) to the directory specified in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
CurrentVersion\Explorer\User shell folders

On Windows 95, the default location is <windir>\start menu\programs. On Windows NT, the default location is <windir>\profiles\<username>\start menu\programs.