Engage is a Start Menu organizer (and replacement) that gives you fast and easy access to all of your most used items.Comments on:

By: Judith Caillier

Judith Caillier — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:35:05 +0000

I had to delete it – it froze my computer.

By: Kevin P.

Kevin P. — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 01:31:18 +0000

Used this program from it’s release date until today. I tried to get into the new usage pattern, but I had the worst problem with “My Documents.” I would save a document in “My Documents” and then, when I went to search for it, I couldn’t find it. Had to do the CTRL+ESC to get to regular menu, open up “My Documents,” and there it was.

How do you invoke the “Run…” command from this program?

Overall, it was a bit slow, tedious, and can easily be overcome by proper organization — the way you want — of the Start Menu.

I’m a software developer. The menu shows “Visual Basic 20..” and Visual Basic “20..”; one is 2003, and one is 2005. I need to know the difference quickly. And, while I still need VB2003 on my machine, I don’t need it to pop up on my start menu competing with 2005.

I can see how it would be good, though, for novices with a lot of standard programs in various standard categories. I’d say, though, that this is for the basic to medium-level user, not an advanced user with a very diverse set of programs, or someone like me who has over 10 thousand files in the “My Documents” folder. Of course I need to organize those, but this app won’t do it for you…in fact, it makes it harder to find a document, in my opinion.

KPM

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:53:05 +0000

What I like about this program is that it allows you organize the start menu so that it is easier on the eyes and makes a little more sense than the original Windows 9x-2k3 start menu.

But, what I dislike is the fact that only certain software is organized automatically and that the type and search function is not always the default action when the start button is pushed. I would like to see that changed in a future release. Otherwise (except for startup) this program runs great. Its a little slow at startup but the redesign to the start menu is nice.

Over all I give this feature a 3.8 out of 5. It would get a higher result but the company should work on fixing the startup speed, and to increase the amount of titles in their database.

By: Lin

Lin — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:11:59 +0000

Complicated to customize.

If you’re only going to use the automated “built-for-you” menu, then the Windows menu will probably work just as well for you.

Customizing this one is more time-consuming than starting from scratch in a menu shell. If finds every instance and every shortcut to every item and lists them alphabetically. So you may have three versions and two shortcuts to a program, producing five menu items. Of course you can hide the ones you don’t want, but each one takes several seconds to “tag” as “hidden.”

Basically, the program is just a different way of organizing your menu…a way decided by a team of users and beta testers.

What is the likelihood your business or home operations will be similar to theirs?

If you’ve just bought a new plain vanilla computer with only basic software on it, you might like this. Otherwise, you may find your hardware manufacturer (like HP) has put games in a different directory and Engage will not automatically find them!

By: carrie

carrie — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:17:00 +0000

Hi, I downloaded Engage and installed it well in time before the clock ticked away. Yet it is still giving me messages that it is only the trial version. Has anyone else had the same problem? or could GOTD help me with this? I woulldnt have downloaded if i thought it would re arrange every thing, nicely i may add and then stop working to leave things in a mess. Whatever type of proof you need, not sure what but il give u details. Can you help moderators? Carrie. Thankyou

By: Andrew Lyric

Andrew Lyric — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:03:04 +0000

#107 1) You can shut down engage by right-clicking on the Tray icon and selecting “Exit (Shutdown Engage)” or by clicking on the Help/Options button in Engage and selecting the same thing. 2) Sorry that it wouldn’t un-install while it was running…it was just trying to save you rebooting, afterwards.

By: Val C

Val C — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:09:11 +0000

I eventually had to uninstall. Shame. Thanks GAOTD but this programme didn’t seem to want to work on my computer. I couldn’t open any of my applications or games…just kept getting an error message

By: Duckie

Duckie — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:56:13 +0000

Sorry for the typos, I meant that I found that the entry for Ulead- GIF X wasn’t only one entry, but 5 of them, none of them containing the app itself, whereas it should be a folder for the app, plus the subfolders for the website, registration, etc.

By: mustafa

mustafa — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:48:31 +0000

not interested

By: Duckie

Duckie — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:47:03 +0000

I had plans to organize my start menu folder some day. It was a biiiiiiiiig mess!
So, decided to give this a try.
No problems installing or activating and registrating the software. It stopped for only a couple minutes, maybe just one minute, to do its thing and search was quick, despite the big amount of stuff it had to search.
Ok, then I launched it and was disappointed to see that it didn’t recognize most of the games as games, it didn’t recognize Incredimail as a mail program, etc. The uncategorized folder was full of different stuff of all kinds.
However, what disappointed me most was that it creates and endless number of entries for the same software, instead of opening a folder for the program and then categorize those items within a subfolder.
For instance, in the graphics folder there’s all my different vrsions of Paint Shop Pro, and the I find an entry for Ulead GIF-X Plugin has 5 different entries, no subfolder for them.
Nero is also listed under Photo & Graphics, as well as under Audio & Video.
In a word, now I have a more organized mess than before, and I’ll probably uninstall this in a few days.
IMO, LyricCode, this app needs more developing before it can be sold. As it is now, it isn’t worth 9,95, let alone 19,95!
Thanks anyway GAOTD, and kep up the good work!