Make windows work the way you want with title bar menus

Open a web browser and go to Moo0's website. To the left of the page, in the Desktop section of the Software List column, click the WindowMenuPlus link. In the right-hand part of the page, beneath the description of the program, click the green Download icon. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder.

Once the download is complete, locate and double-click the downloaded file – named ‘Moo0 WindowMenuPlus 1.11 Installer.exe’ – to start the installation. If a User Account Control dialogue box appears, click Yes to continue, remove the tick from the ‘Complitly’ box (because this is a free search tool that you don’t need) and then click the large Next button. Tick the box labelled ‘I Accept the Agreement’ and then click Next again. Use the Browse button to choose where to install the program and click the Next button.

Use the tick boxes on the Select Additional Tasks dialogue box to configure a number of basic options, such as where shortcuts should be created and whether Windowmenuplus should launch automatically with Windows. We would advise leaving the ‘Start on System Boot’ option ticked, so that Windowmenuplus is always available. Click Next followed by the Install button. Once installation is complete, click Close.

The first time the program is launched, a message will be displayed that reads ‘The configuration is available from TaskTray icon menu’. Click the OK button to clear this message and then right-click the green Windowmenuplus icon that should be visible in the Notification Area. In the menu that appears, ensure that there is a tick next to the Turn On option – just click it, if not – and then check in the Show/Hide submenu to ensure that all the options listed here are also ticked.

Windowmenuplus is now ready to use and the way to access it is to right-click in the title bar of a program or window – that’s the strip that runs along the top. The context menu that appears includes a number of new entries relating to Windowmenuplus. The first is Keep on Top, which will ensure that the program or window never gets buried under other programs or windows. Click to activate or disable, as necessary.

When a large number of programs and windows are open at the same time, it can quickly become difficult to manage the Desktop. Windowmenuplus includes a couple of handy options to rearrange and resize windows. Right-click a window’s title bar once more, point to the ‘Move to’ submenu and then choose where the window should go – there’s no need to drag it into place.

Windows 7 introduced Aero Snap, which offers a quick and easy way to resize windows by simply dragging them to the top of left- or right-hand side of the screen. Windowmenuplus extends this idea with more options, available via the ‘Maximize to’ submenu. It’s possible, for instance, have a window fill just a quarter of the available screen space.

If using the Keep on Top setting (see Step 5), then Windowmenuplus’s Transparency option may come in useful – as this will allow you to ‘see through’ the uppermost window. Click to expand the Transparency submenu and then choose a setting between 10 and 100 per cent, depending on the desired opacity level.

The options looked at so far can be used with both application and normal file windows, but there are some settings that are applicable only to program windows. Right-click a program’s title bar and look in the second section of the Windowmenuplus menu. The Kill Process option can be used to close a program that is not responding properly, while the Free Unused Memory entry shows how much memory is available to other programs. Use the Process Priority menu to assign more or less memory and processor time to the current program, as required.

The final three WindowMenuPlus menu entries also relate to programs rather than Windows Explorer windows. The Find this Program entry can be used to find the folder that contains the application’s executable file, while holding the mouse pointer over Program Information provides lots of detail about the current application. The final Windowmenuplus menu item, ‘Iconize to Tray’, minimises the program or folder to a small icon in the Notification Area – just click the icon to restore the program to its former size.