Good day every1. long story short, i did a refresh of my install and switched to windows 8.1.1. i'm loving it so far. i installed windows, did all the windows updates, did all of my drivers, did my security software, did my custom theme and all tweaks, then installed all my 3rd party software. the only issue i've run across is when i open start menu organizer to organize the nextstart startmenu i rightclick on a category and try to click rename it doesn't work, nor does new subcategory or delete. none of the 4 buttons below category work either. now "remove selected items from category", "and add selected items to category" work fine. dragging items into a category, and out of the category works just fine. rightclicking a item in the "uncategorized start menu items" column" the add to category works along with delete, but make new category from folder doesn't. i have tried under normal settins, under win 7 compatibility, vista sp2 compatibility, and even xp sp3 compatibility and no luck. any ideas would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Windows 8.x does not have a Windows Start Menu, thus the Start Menu Organizer is not compatible with it.

To organize NextSTART menus, you do it from within NextSTART itself via the built-in menu editor.

from what i'm seeing from the nextstart menu editor i'm going to be better off going to the nextstart startmenu and organizing from there. which is fine, it's the way i use to do it.

since all my installed apps are listed on the ns startmenu including the preinstalled windows apps i'm curious as to where ns is pulling that info from. basically what you're saying is sm organizer is reordering the actual windows startmenu when it exist, and ns is just pulling the info from windows on the organization of the startmenu.

decided to use smo to at least move items to the existing categories, ans then edit the names of the categories on the ns starmenu. when i went into smo this time EVERYTHING was working, so it is compatible with 8, 8.1, 8.1.1.

Wait. Are you sure the Winstep Start Menu Organizer is showing up as registered? The free version does not allow you to add new categories.

jorge first you claim that it won't work on 8.1 at all, and you claim it won't do what i've always done with it.

everything you see in the below images was done through start menu organizer, through simply rightclicking the various categories and renaming them, rightclicking the categories i didn't need and deleting, rightclicking both administrative tools and windows ease of access and choosing to make new categories out of them, them i simply hi-lited the category an item belonged in and dragged the item from uncategorized start menu items to items in........

Chucky, I'm confused. Jorge mentioned a free version but I see PRO on the screenshot. So that implies you used the PRO version to make all of the tweaks you mentioned and not the free version.

For the record, I know almost nothing about the organizer since I don't use it.

you're right windy i didn't even notice. since the first time that i used winstep i have always been able to use all the features in nextstart, workshel/nexus, and start menu organizer. i have never downloaded start menu organizer as a standalone app, so either jorge is confused as to which version he's included in winstep xtreme or by some strange fluke everything i've download the new version of xtreme somehow i've ended up with the pro version of start menu organizer instead of the free version, or all these years jorge has been including the pro version instead of the free version.

Winstep Xtreme includes the Pro version of the Organizer.

I have no idea why the category buttons were not working under Windows 8.x.

Since Windows 8.x does not feature a Windows Start Menu, the Organizer was not tested under it.

However, as you well pointed out, it is still useful to organize the Programs section of the NextSTART menu, since 'legacy' apps are unaware that they are being run under Win 8.x and therefore still create shortcuts in the (now non-existent but still there under the hood) Windows Start Menu.

Since the structure of applications under 'Programs' is decided by the structure of folders and shortcuts installed by the apps themselves, you can not re-organize it using the built-in NextSTART Menu Editor - you were right, you still need an utility like the Organizer.

jorhe you might want to take a look at startisback. for most of us that want 8, 8.1, 8.1.1 customized that is the startmenu restorer we use. i'm assuming that since it's themeable that odds are that it will look at any app installed regardless of how it's installed and create a shortcut for the app on it's startmenu. i don't know how hard it would be for you to make smo with an app like that instead of the actually hidden windows startmenu. just a thought.