Using Group Policy Editor to customize the Start panel WINDOWS XP

The Group Policy Editor is a great tool that makes customizing the Start panel a snap. The most common use of the Group Policy Editor is to edit policy information on a domain controller. The domain controller can be thought of as a computer on a corporate network that is in charge of security. It is like a database of usernames, passwords, and configuration information.Think you can get the Group Policy Editor to work by copying over the program file to a computer running Windows XP Home? Sorry, but I tried doing so, and the program would not start. So, the discussion in this section will only apply to those working with Windows XP Professional.If you are running XP Home, you will not be missing out on too much; the next section about adding and removing the different navigation icons will be compatible with your version. Now that you know all about the Group Policy Editor, it is time to learn how you can use policy editor to customize the Start panel.

To begin customizing, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start Menu and select Run. Then type gpedit.msc into the box and click OK.
This will start up the Group Policy Editor. If you get an error, make sure that you have typed the name of the file correctly and that you are running Windows XP Professional.

2. Now that you have the Group Policy Editor up and running, you will want to navigate to the Start Menu and Taskbar settings. This can be done by expanding the User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and the Start Menu and Taskbar folder.

3. Once you have navigated through the Editor, you will see a list of all of the different features of the Policy Editor, as shown in Figure 1. A number of features listed will only apply to the taskbar.Table lists all of the relevant features and provides a description of what they will do. For the sake of demonstrating how to use the Editor, let’s assume that you want to remove the username from appearing on the top of the Start panel. Use your mouse to locate Remove User Name from the Start Menu list. Right-click it & select Properties.

4. The Remove User Name from the Start Menu Properties window will load. Then, to turn the feature on, just click the circle (known as a radio button) next to Enabled, as shown in Figure.

5. Then, just click OK and you are finished.