Let me start by saying that I have no idea why anybody would want to do this, and it’s perhaps one of the most useless articles I’ve ever written. That said, if you’ve ever wondered how to remove the username from the Start menu in Windows XP, this article is for you.

I suppose this could also be used in reverse, if your start menu does not have the username you could check this registry setting. I’m quite sure that somebody somewhere will find a use for this topic.

Note that this only applies to the XP style menu, not the classic menus… since they don’t have the username anyway.

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu run box, and then browse down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a new DWORD value on the right-hand pane with the following values:

• Name: NoUserNameInStartMenu
• Value: 1

To remove, either set the value to 0 or just delete the key. You will have to log off and back on to see the start menu without the username:

You could also remove the picture by deleting or renaming this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

Doing so would remove the picture from the login page as well, and it doesn’t remove the blue border across the top.