PdfCreator is violating this paradigm with almost all of its Start Menu shortcuts. Following best practices, there should only be a shortcut to PdfCreator in the Start Menu. If you do this, you don't even need a PdfCreator folder in the Start Menu, eliminating a "dry click" and exposing PdfCreator immediately when a user clicks on All Programs (in Windows 7).
Sehr fleißig … Validating PDF-Creator against MSDN …
Unfortunately Microsoft itself is unable to obey these rules.
Here is the folder of …
…\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008>dir
…
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008-Dokumentation.lnk
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.lnk
Visual Studio Remote Tools
Visual Studio Tools
As you can see they put a help link in the menu. - This is a catastrophe because it is accessible through the program itself!
Or think of Microsoft Silverlight! Why there is a folder after installing; there are only one or two shortcuts? Disaster?
(If you do everything Microsoft wants you to do, you’ll never be ready. Like “Install Windows Search on Windows XP!” - This should be listed under 5 ways to
slowdown your computer and exhaust your resources along with “Install .NET 3.0 to 4.0!” and other “new nice features” that Microsoft invents.)
Be honest, nearly every program has a help link and I think that’s a good idea. (If you are looking for API-Documentation or command line switches, you won’t launch the program.) The problems arise while using one of the newer MS OSs.
In XP there is no problem because you access it through folders and not via typing the beginning letters.
The next question is why do You often navigate to the pdf-Creator startmenu-programfolder? It is only necessary to stop auto-save.
But there is really something to this post:
It’s a justified question, whether all licenses have to be available, since they are included in the help file.
If I will create a *.msi package, there will be something in the feature tree if the user clicked on “custom - installation” like “additional shortcuts”(, what ever MSDN says.).
Good work! Go on, on validating!
Yours sincerely
RE
"If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?"
Sure, one Microsoft VS 2010 Prof shortcut, out of 24 total, violates norms. That's still a 96% compliance rate.
7 of PdfCreator's 9 Start Menu shortcuts are nothing more than clutter, a 22% compliance rate.
Let's look at software that doesn't clutter the Start Menu:
Adobe Reader
Inkscape
Internet Explorer
Pidgin
OpenOffice
WireShark
Safari
TweetDeck
Nearly every program does not have a Start Menu help link. Instead, they use the commonly accepted UI norm of either presenting contextual help or providing a Help menu in the program. Or they have great help on a web site that is one Google search away.