Removing the IE/Win Explorer menu bar - Win 9x/ME/2K/XP      

This one was right up under my nose for so long, and just now figured out what was needed in order for it to work. I first made it visible in my "Orbital Squared" desktop shot, and due to a large amount of request for instructions on how to do it, I felt a small tutorial would suffice.

The beauty of this mod is simply that it just works. We've had the modded IE/Explorer toolbar menus forever now, but this goes one step further by allowing you to completely hide the bar by cutting if off, and keeping it off, and whenever you want it back on, you simply turn it back on, just that simple. It gives your explorer/IE windows a very nice, slimmed down look, and also provides even more room to play with within the window itself. So, below is an image with the mod in action:



So, to do this, you'll need to open Resource Hacker, and load BROWSELC.DLL, then go to MENU #264. For 2K/XP, the number of your menu might differ from mine, but the target menu will be in Browselc.dll. To help you make sure you have the right menu, it will look similiar to below (I've removed some of the default items)

264 MENUEX
LANGUAGE LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US
{
POPUP "", 264, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED, 0
{
MENUITEM "&Menu Bar", 41482, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Buttons", 41476, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "URL", 41477, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Launch", 41478, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "", 41480, MFT_SEPARATOR, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Lock", 41484, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Auto-&Hide", 41481, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Modify", 41501, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "&Text Labels", 41479, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "&Go Button", 41483, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED

}
}


Now, the trick here to accomplish this mod is very easy. All you need to do, is basically emulate the first menuitem, being the "Menu Bar" item. This menuitem, on my system, does not show up by default, even though it's in the same menu that it should be in order to show.

This menu, for those who might be a bit lost, is the menu that you see when you right click on the menu bars of either IE or explorer, where you have options to display certain toolbars, etc... This is the very menu that should contain this command by default, but doesn't, so you have to make it show itself.

So, all you do, is simply select the first menu line, and then copy it to another location within this same menu. You leave it identical to the way it is, except for changing it's caption. The line I'm referring to is below:

MENUITEM "&Menu Bar", 41482, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED

All you have to do is change the name of it in between the quotes, from "&Menu Bar", to whatever you'de like. I named mine "Bar". What this does, is it makes the menu show the command, because it has no choice but to, but yet, it retains the same function as it's original item. So, a modded menu, correctly formatted, looks like so:

264 MENUEX
LANGUAGE LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US
{
POPUP "", 264, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED, 0
{
MENUITEM "&Menu Bar", 41482, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Buttons", 41476, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "URL", 41477, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Launch", 41478, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "", 41480, MFT_SEPARATOR, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Lock", 41484, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Auto-&Hide", 41481, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "Modify", 41501, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "&Text Labels", 41479, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "&Go Button", 41483, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
MENUITEM "BAR", 41482, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
}
}


As you can see, I placed my second item on the bottom, but you can place yours wherever you wish.

As stated, this mod works in both IE, and win explorer. If you wish to keep other toolbars out, such as the address, or links bar, the toolbar menus will turn off, but you will not gain any extra space, due to having the other toolbars out. I only use this mod in explorer, as I have no need for any toolbars such as links or address, while browsing files. Also, once you turn it off, if you decide you need the menus again, simply right click where you normally would to open this menu, select your new item again, and the menu bar will reappear. You might have to click around a bit to find the right spot, but eventually, the menu will pop out.

So there ya have it, a little mod that makes alot of difference, to some anyway :) Enjoy :)

by WinT