Vista - (Empty) 'New' menu, empty start menu, BRAND NEW VISTA!

Okay. So today I'm enjoying my 2 day old Vista. I've had a crappy 2003 Compaq XP for EVER now, and I was happy to get a new computer, completely crappy OS or not. (Yes, I've heard the rumors about Vista, so I was prepared for lots and lots of hours of troubleshooting!) I want to look around and explore, so I click on my start menu. Nothing. The My Computer, Control Panel, etc etc etc is on there. But nothing. I click 'all programs', and it's all there. I tried to modify the settings on my start menu, I pressed OK and out of curiosity went back into my Start Menu settings to check-- And they were back to what they were before!!

My easy way out has always been, since my XP was crap, to completely restore my computer, suck it up, reinstall everything and start fresh. So I decided to add a new WinRAR .rar folder thing, put all my pictures in there, put it on Megaupload.com and download the file after I restore Vista. I right clicked. Went under 'New > (Empty)'.

Okay. What the heck. I almost cried! My baby, my brand new vista, already encountering problems! I installed daemon tools, PHotoshop CS2, poweriso, AIM, itunes, basically my necessities, within the two day period. I turned my computer on, no problems. My norton preformed its scheduled scan this morning at 6am, and I had a trojan horse and it can't be repaired. Okay. Well. I've had thousands of those on my old computer and it ran at full speed with no problems, but could this be the reason? I restarted it two, three hours ago so my daemon tools can finish installing, and that's when I realized my start menu and things were messed up. Also, when I went into my computer after I restarted, the theme was set on 'windows classic', my background was left untouched. I cannot drag and drop anything into the start menu. It says I can, but I can't.

Desktop icons are fine. I also installed 16 or so updates because I guess my Vista isn't up to date-- It did it automatically.

Also, links, pictures, etc, like 'My Computer', My 'C:' drive, 'My Pictures', pictures, music, etc in Folders, have a check mark beside them.

Pleasepleasepleaaase help...

You sound a little frustrated. You've forgotten one thing. Vista isn't XP. It doesn't do things the same way as XP. Many things it does better. You just have to learn how. Spend a bit of time browsing through Brink's Vista Tutorials here:-
Tutorials - Vista Forums

This will make things a lot clearer to you and help you to set up Vista the way you want

Norm

How is that going to help me? I don't need to personalize my computer or make it look pretty, I need to fix my problem.

And I'm not frustrated, I'm upset that my brand new computer is already acting up. :/ I just want a solution. I tried one of their tutorials to restore my start menu to its default settings and didn't work. I've passed by there before.

But really, thank you for at least trying. D: I'm going to try to search around a bit more for resolved forums with this sort of problem.

Okay. Then you have a problem. Perhaps if you provide me with a clear statement of your problem in a way that I and others can understand we may be able to help.

Norm

You cannot keep trojan virus and expect smooth system. If you cannot MANUALLY get rid of it, try Sytem Restore using the very first restore point(bottom of the list). If that does not help, consider re-installing.

If re-installed, do not do anything until after all updates have been installed. Before installing third party wares, make sure you have all spaces (total, free, fragments, etc...)are accountable. Defragg if necessay.

I have noticed lots of probs posted in Forum have been due to incompatibilities(32 vs 64 bit). Whatever version of Home premium you have, check for compatibility first before installing third party wares.

Yeah, I've been pretty irritated about the trojan :/ I just now restored it, and I'm preforming a full system scan to see if its still there.

Sadly, my problem persists; The menu is messed up. I'll try Defragging though. Mine is a 32bit, by the way.

I re-read your initial post to try to understand what exactly is your prob. Eliminating all those non-helpful and distracting words expressing how upset you have been, I came up with this interpretation of your situation:

You have a brand new Vista 32 (at this point, I dunno if you also have a brand new PC). Right after it was installed two days ago it was fine. Then you installed several third party programs and softwares. Soon after, your system started acting up. Then you installed updates. Then you ran Norton scan that showed you have Trojan virus that cannot be removed. Then you continue computing with a trojan in your system and installing more softwares. And now, your two day old Vista 32-bit is all messed up...starting with Start menu that you want reset back to default setting.

If this is not accurate, please re-compose your message without distracting words...go to the point. We would really want to go to the bottom of your problems...but we need to now exactly what they are.