SyMenu Forum

Gianluca

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05/01/2026 Topic: SyMenu 8.11 Gianluca Administrator	Hello everyone, A new year has begun and a new SyMenu version comes with it. This release is quite a nice one, introducing some new features along with some bug fixes. The main new feature worth highlighting is the ability to enable customizable tooltips for Windows items. As you know, external executables can appear in SyMenu here and there, for example, when you search for something that exists in the host Start Menu, or when you browse your physical file system through SyMenu. In these cases, SyMenu shows a tooltip containing only the basic information it can easily extract from the file: its full path and name. However, if SyMenu finds a file in the same folder with the same name as the executable and the .tooltip extension, it will open that file in text mode, read it, and use its content to populate the item’s tooltip. For example, if you search for Microsoft Word (the shortcut name) and SyMenu resolves it to its target file (winword.exe), then, if a file named winword.exe.tooltip exists, SyMenu will open it, read it, and use its content as the tooltip for Word. For a clear overview of this new feature, please refer to the manual: https://www.ugmfree.it/manual#Advanced_menu_Options_Menu And if you have any questions, I’m here.
09/01/2026 Topic: Win11 client machine takes long time to settle Gianluca Administrator	Startup time SyMenu appears almost instantly as a system tray icon and starts flashing with a small red light, mimicking hard drive activity. Any other scenario suggests a problem with your system. The flashing phase indicates that SyMenu is indexing your Start menu and its own programs. It should take up to a minute on particularly slow devices, not more. Since you are reading from a network share, that is likely your bottleneck. Large number of files It is normal for a program like SyMenu to slow down as you add more files. In normal conditions, this slowdown is manageable (a matter of seconds), but your situation is far from normal. However, don't get distracted by this: your main issue is the overall delay. Generally speaking, 147.503 files in 12.977 folders are too many for almost any program except for a file explorer. And SyMenu is not a file explorer, even if it has some features that mimic one. I assume you aren't referring to 147.503 actual programs but normal file, so please use SyMenu for programs, not as a file manager. Anyway the real concern remains the 2:20–4:30 minutes required for a clean install. Shadohz wrote: So I guess this brings me back to my original question: is there a way to stop or bypass this on-launch scanning behavior? No, there isn't. And there is no reason to prevent it because this is not your real problem. And this brings me back to my first suggestion: why don't you try testing it by adding a single element at a time? If I were in your shoes, the very first test I would perform is running a clean version of SyMenu directly on the server machine, and another clean version directly on the client machine. This is the only way to accurately check a program's performance. Any test involving a connection between two machines is actually testing: - The network speed - The SMB protocol configuration - The network cards - The network cables - The Antivirus (AV) behaviour - The Firewall You are testing too many variables at once and I won't be able to help you until we isolate where the real problem lies.
10/01/2026 Topic: Win11 client machine takes long time to settle Gianluca Administrator	Shadohz wrote: I'm just going to migrate everything back to PortableApps. If it works for you, then it's a good move. Out of curiosity, I tried to reproduce your experiment and I hope these findings help others. My (huge) SyMenu is located in D:\SyMenu. Starting it locally takes less than 10 seconds to launch, scan, and run all configured autoexec programs. I then mapped D:\SyMenu as a network drive (Z:\). Launching it from there, from the same machine, still takes less than 10 seconds to do every action. I then shared the folder on local network. Launching it from another PC still takes less than 10 seconds to do every action. So SyMenu has no problem at all running locally, from a mapped network drive or from a network share. This suggests, as I suspected, the issue might be specific to your environment (e.g., Security settings, OS policies, or restrictive SMB configurations). While I can't diagnose your specific OS setup, I'm glad PortableApps is working as a solid workaround for you.
22/01/2026 Topic: SPS Builder Manual Gianluca Administrator	Thank you, an excellent work came out. I've just linked pinne this thread on top and linked it to the SPS Builer page too.
26 days ago Topic: Show on mouse hover: Automatic menu closure Gianluca Administrator	I analyzed this feature which, frankly, I don’t even remember, and I discover another issue. Sometimes, when the menu closes, the floating icon disappears as well, and there’s no way to make it appear again unless you open and close a form (configuration, options, splash…) from the taskbar icon. Worse, the problem sometimes persists even after disabling the option, until SyMenu is restarted with the option unflagged. I’m trying to simplify SyMenu, so instinctively my idea is to remove this option, but let’s try to understand whether it makes sense or not. The question is: is it really useful to open the menu by hovering the floating icon with the mouse? In my opinion it isn’t, because to actually perform any action in the menu, you still have to click on an item. There’s no function accessible through simple hovering, except for general navigation among menu entries. And SyMenu is not a navigator, neither for its own items nor for the file system items even if it allows you to browse it. So the conclusion is that there’s no real reason to keep this feature alive, and I will probably remove it in the next version. Anyway, if I’m missing some use cases, please let me know.
26 days ago Topic: Show on mouse hover: Automatic menu closure Gianluca Administrator	If you don’t see the system tray icon and don’t want to use your keyboard, you can rely on the floating icon. The only difference compared to your current workflow is that you need to click on it instead of hovering. Mouse gestures are still available, but I abandoned the developing of that feature long ago, so I don’t recommend re-enabling it. If you still want to count on it, you can search the forum for instructions on how to activate again. Indeed there’s another way to launch SyMenu, although I doubt it will be suitable for you: you can create a desktop shortcut pointing to SyMenu and use that instead. SyMenu allows multiple instances, but only one instance per physical executable. So if your shortcut points to a specific SyMenu.exe, only one instance will run. If you try to start a second instance from the same executable, the menu of the first one will pop up. Since it works this way, you could also use a third‑party tool to create a mouse gesture that triggers the same shortcut. The effect will be the same. Please let me know if any of these options could work for you. By the way, which program launcher offers the feature you described? I’m curious to test it, because I’d like to understand whether it could be useful to implement something similar in SyMenu.
25 days ago Topic: Show on mouse hover: Automatic menu closure Gianluca Administrator	Ok, I tested Start Everywhere and I really like the feature, so I’ll add it to the SyMenu todo list and let’s see what happens. By the way, I didn’t know WinTools.info, and I’ve just realized they offer a lot of nice freeware tools. So - message for the SPS editors - I’d really appreciate it if someone could take care of adding them to the SyMenu suite. In the meantime, I’ll try to contact Peter Panisz to see whether he likes the idea.
14 days ago Topic: slow down startup and random freezes Gianluca Administrator	Hi Samo, there’s absolutely no need to reinstall anything. SyMenu doesn’t write to the system registry, so it doesn’t accumulate junk over time. Your first run is exactly the same as your last one. Before giving you what is not a solution but a possible cause list, I suggest you try this: back up your SyMenu\Config folder somewhere safe delete SyMenu\Config\SyMenuConfig.zip SyMenuConfig.zip is where SyMenu stores its settings, not your items configuration, so you can safely delete it. When you start the program again, it will ask you to configure everything (language, license, privacy, contextual menu elements, colors, and so on). With a non‑customized menu (no autoxec, no gestures, no custom shortcuts), try using it for a while to see whether the issue is actually related to SyMenu. But trust the old man: this probably won’t be your solution. What you’re describing strongly suggests: synchronization issues antivirus interference storage problems If you’re experiencing the exact same issue on all four of your PCs (you didn’t mention that), it’s probably the antivirus slowing down access to one of your program folders. Synchronization can easily stall the filesystem, as we learned from another user who abandoned SyMenu because it couldn’t handle his complex sync setup (https://www.ugmfree.it/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=959). If the problem occurs only on one PC, check the disk, it might be time to replace it. Let me know if any of this resonates.
5 hours ago Topic: A crazy new adventure! Gianluca Administrator	Hello everyone, I'm going a bit off-topic here to tell you about a new, exciting madness I've been diving into lately: it's called GANI. GANI is a very different program from SyMenu, yet it draws many of its core principles from it: absolute precision, total control, and zero compromises. So, what exactly is GANI? In technical terms, it is a RAG system assisted by conversational AI. Specifically, a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is a system usually based on an LLM (Large Language Model), making it similar to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot. Unlike those, however, a RAG concentrates its analytical power primarily on the user's own data. In practice, it's an intelligent assistant that reads your documents, understands them, and answers your questions based predominantly on the materials it has "absorbed". For those who know a bit about the subject: I should clarify that it isn't exactly an "agent". It won't take initiative, it won't control your accounts, it won't go grocery shopping for you, and it won't clean the cat's litter box. It limits itself to reading and digesting only the documents you actively provide. Likewise, it will erase from its memory any documents you remove. Is this the "total control" I mentioned earlier? No. There are various software tools today that offer more or less the same thing. Even AIs like ChatGPT can do it: you give them a document, they read it, and they process it. The real revolution here is something else: 100% local privacy, with no smoke and mirrors. Today we are surrounded by cloud-based AI. Even 99% of so-called "local agents" are nothing more than interfaces that ultimately rely on online services for the actual processing. But for me, privacy is not: "send me your text, I'll analyze it, I'll reply, and then... I promise... trust me... I'll delete it." To me, privacy means not sending anything out at all, in the most absolute and total way. GANI's AI runs entirely on your PC. The whole indexing and analysis process happens right there, on your hardware, completely offline. Your data never leaves your hard drive. GANI is an AI with a pure and irreproachable soul that respects your privacy and doesn't exploit your content simply because... technically, it can't. Clearly, running everything locally comes at a price: the hardware requirements are heavy. This isn't "lightweight" software for every PC but it requires computing power to run the models smoothly. You need a GPU, RAM, and VRAM. If you want to use the most powerful LLM models (GANI lets you choose from several), you'll need to increase that power... in the magic world of AI, power is everything. And unfortunately, power has a cost. And if you think we have all this computing power for free on the cloud today... well, reflect on the fact that you are paying for it with your data. Consistent with my long-standing tradition, GANI will be completely free for the vast majority of users. However, to make it sustainable, I have included a limit on the number of indexable documents in the Free version (the Pro version will be dedicated to those who need to manage large volumes or want to use it commercially). SyMenu, in its own way, taught me that this is the only way to ensure continuity and remove the boundaries of development. Why this post? Well, I need some of you, enthusiastic and technically skilled people, who want to jump into this new adventure. At this stage of development, I am looking for: Beta Testers: to measure the AI engine performance on different hardware configurations and to test the user interface. Translators: to make GANI multilingual. But I've also opened this thread to gather your suggestions, doubts, technical insights, or critiques. I want to know what you think and if the idea of a truly local AI seems as sensible to you as it does to me. If you'd like to give a hand with testing or translations, please write to me in private. You can learn more and download the beta version of the program on the GANI website here: https://ganisoft.com