Windows 8 dropped the Start menu, but it added a small menu of its own on the desktop. Press Win+X (or right-click the bottom-left corner of the screen) and you get quick links to admin tools such as Command Prompt, Event Viewer, Device Manager, Task Manager, Control Panel and Search. What Windows 8 doesn’t give you is a way to add, edit or remove items in that menu. Win+X Menu Editor fills that gap.
Why the Win+X menu is hard to edit
The menu is built from ordinary shortcut files, but Windows only shows shortcuts that carry a special hash. Copying a new shortcut into the menu’s folder therefore doesn’t work. Early on, users had to stamp shortcuts with a separate command-line tool called hashlnk. Win+X Menu Editor does this for you: from version 2 its developer built hashlnk’s functions into the editor, so no extra tool is needed and no system files are patched.
What you can do with it
- Add any program, file or shortcut to the menu.
- Remove entries you never use.
- Rename items and change their order.
- Create or remove groups; groups appear as sections divided by a line in the menu.
- Add Control Panel items (even hidden ones such as Network Connections), Administrative Tools items and presets like shutdown commands, features added in later versions.
How to use Win+X Menu Editor
- Download the editor from its developer and extract it. Early versions came in separate 32-bit and 64-bit builds, so run the one that matches your Windows.
- If SmartScreen blocks the program on first run, click More info and then Run anyway.
- The editor lists the shortcuts currently in your Win+X menu, sorted by group.
- To add an item, choose Add a program and pick a file, or add a Control Panel or Administrative Tools item.
- To remove an item, select it and click remove. Use the arrows to move items within a group.
- Click Restart Explorer to apply the changes, then press Win+X to see your new menu.
Keep the menu focused on tools you really use. For programs you open many times a day, it can be just as quick to add shortcuts to the desktop or pin them to the taskbar.
Today
Win+X Menu Editor was later updated for Windows 10: version 3.0 supports the Creators Update (version 1703) and uses a single executable for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. The Win+X menu itself is still in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Windows 8 is long out of support, though; Windows 8.1 support ended on January 10, 2023, with no security updates since. If you’re still on it, plan a move to a supported version. Many tools in the menu, such as Device Manager, are the same on newer Windows, as our drivers guide shows.
