How do I make the start menu wider?

**foxdenvixen** · 05-30-2011

Thanks Grimm. I appreciate your help on this.

**Mr GRiM** · 05-30-2011

Originally Posted by foxdenvixen

Thanks Grimm. I appreciate your help on this.

Your welcome, just one little bug I just found though that needs to be corrected after you apply the style hack, in Start Menu > Panels > Aero > Top > PlacesListExtended change the content Margin to 20, 20, 50, 0

I just noticed there was a invisible box showing when you have the start menu extended.

**foxdenvixen** · 05-30-2011

That invisible box could be left over from another theme. I applied the stylehack and this is what I get. I may have to start from scratch to eliminate any residual theme pieces. I am also trying to get the wood darker to look more like the Black Pearl but still look like wood. I may have to switch over to PS instead of FW.

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**foxdenvixen** · 05-30-2011

I just wanted to let you know that I am starting over from the beginning. I am using the basic Aero style and using the tutorial here on VC and going through each section. I think it will be a lot easier to learn that way and not have residual graphics that could mess up what I am trying to create. I will be posting questions as I run across problems. This should be fun and hopefully I won't run across too many problems that are present from another theme.

**foxdenvixen** · 06-05-2011

The start menu is looking good now and I see how you helped me out, Grimm, with slicing the left side of the menu bar so that it can expand properly with the addition of more programs. I also did some looking around at other themes that have background images in the start menu that seem to have programs having half an image and places having the other half of the image. This is a cool way to do this. I have also seen some menus with an image attached to the right side so I am sure that the places portion needs to be widened to handle this, correct? That is something I may play with in another theme. I don't have that many programs on my laptop at this time to see how moreprograms works but will check out the tutorial to see how to tweak this. I am also in the process of upgrading my desktop from XP to Windows 7 so I can play on it but have to move several terabytes of data from several HDDs first.

**Arkrothe** · 06-17-2011

I'm trying to do the same thing, the picture i have put for PlacesListExtended is showing only the portion within the sizing margins which can be stretched so i tried to set defaultpanelsize. However this property was not there in any of the fields so i added the property to each field. and set the defaultpanelsize to the size of each pic. However when i try to test it an error pops up saying "You may have added or edited a property incorrectly". I tried to change the defaultpanelsize however the error still came up.

I've tried to add the content margins to each field and change that too but i'm still getting the same error. I just don't understand whats happening here.

Edit: I found out how to get around that error - copy the property from a vista theme opened directly in Vista Style Builder and paste it into the windows 7 theme in the windows 7 style builder. I don't know if there's a fix for this but this method works.