Vista - Programdata\Microsoft\windows no start menu

Hey guys,
Not to long ago all of the sudden (i havent noticed when it happend as i mainly use desktop icons) the programs have disapeared totally from the "All Programs". Most of the oem ones are there and i saw the thread to restore those, no biggy there, but the programs that i installed are gone now too, like Office, flight sim x, wow, quickbooks, etc. is there a way i can restore or retrieve those without reinstalling? i dont really want to go and copy shortcuts manually. the Programdata\microsoft\windows\ does not contain Start Menu... ????

Hi Boosted,

Have you tried doing a System Restore?

the only restore point i have was on 8/20/08 after windows defender update.
which is not far enough back.
my chkdsk.exe willnt run right, i did all the things in the how to thread and got it to run once and it didnt find any bad sectors or anything. it will not defrag or at least it doesnt appear to (no legend or anything i cant tell if its working or not) oand chkdsk will not run again on schedule. i have a gateway recover and dont want wipe the drive yet again. i swear i regret vista so much

Hello BoostedH23a1, and welcome to Vista Forums.


Please do not multi-post the same problem and question all over the forum. Doing so will make it impossible for us and you to keep up with what is being suggested and any solution. Please keep it all in one thread to make this easy to do.

Check to see if this is set as enabled in this tutorial.

Start Menu All Programs List - Enable or Disable


If it is, then as a test, create another administrator account to see if All Programs is there in that account's Start Menu. If it is, then just delete the old account from within the new account. Be sure to copy over what you want first. Afterwards, you may still need to create new shortcuts for all of your programs from the exe file.

Start Menu - Restore Missing Default Shortcuts

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hey Brink. i can not run gpedit.msc -windows can not find gpedit.msc. make sure you spelled it right.

i have the run button enabled to run things because i can not run things from the (white search place) i dont know why. Im smelling a reformat

also the programdata\....\....startmenu\admin tools isnt in there so i cant use alot of features.

Hi Boosted,

I take it you did not read the Note under that section for gpedit.msc.
You will need to do Method Two instead to see if All Progams is enabled instead.

Did you restore the Start Menu shortcuts to add the Administrative Tools back?

See also,
Administrative Tools - Restore Shortcuts

Hope this helps,
Shawn