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"ALL PROGRAMS" only shows a few original files ...

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Washbush:
I am still playing with this old DELL Dimension 8250.  With the help of your Advanced and Simple Tweaks, (I have started to call them "Big Tweaks" and "Little Tweaks"), the old critter is doing much more than I expected.  It is strong enough that I spent a few bucks on eBay and bought enough additional memory to run it up to 2GB.  Next I want to increase the video memory too.

The obvious glitch to all of this is on the Start Menu under "ALL PROGRAMS".  The list is very, very short.  It looks as if nothing has been added to the list since the original installation of Vista.  Do you have any suggestions as to what might be responsible for that? 

Otherwise, all is well and I am having a good time with this machine.  I am going places and trying things that I never would have done before knowing that even if I make a big mistake I haven't lost anything valuable and I have Big and Little to come to the rescue if I need them. I am really getting to like this stuff.  Thanks again for all of your fantastic work.

John
 :confused:

Shane:
Did you check the add/remove programs to see if anything extra is installed? If not then the start menu would be short :-)

This user here was missing the accessories folder, but I think that is different than what you are saying.
http://www.tweaking.com/forums/index.php/topic,1901.0.html

Shane

Washbush:
Right, I am making reference to something much different.

When I go to the start button, and on the page with the Quick Start Menu, there is a link called "All Programs".  In the past, it has always been a listing of all of the installed programs on the computer.  For me, it was the main go-to when I wanted to open something that I didn't use very often.  Or, if I wanted to make a shortcut for the desktop.  Since I installed Vista on this computer, I don't have any of that.

What I do have is a listing of folders, all of which look to me like something that Windows would have put there.  I have Accessories, Administrative Tools, Maintinance and StartUp.  Administrative Tools and Startup are both empty, however. 

When I go through the the Control Panel, and I select Add/Remove Programs, I find a list of installed programs as long as my arm.  Every time I install something new it shows up here, but almost nothing shows up on the ALL PROGRAMS list.  Well, there is one exception.  I took all of the programs that I have downloaded from you and put them in a folder called "Tweaking.Com".  Guess what?  That folder is the only other thing, other than folders that look like Windows installation folders, that show on the list at all. 

Consequently, it is an annoying little search to go the long route through Computer/Drive C:/etc. to get to the executable file for everything I want to open that isn't on a shortcut somewhere. 

It wouldn't be so bad if there was a way to open a program from the Add/Remove Programs list on the Control Panel.  But, I don't know of any way to do that, if there even is a way.

Do you have any suggestions?

John

Shane:
The all programs folder in the start menu simply loads up two folders on the system. So if the shortcuts are not in that folder then it wont show anything. So lets check those folders first.

The first place it looks at is the shortcuts for all users, which should be under this path

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

And then it looks at the folder for the current profile of who is looged in which should be here

C:\Users\Shane\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

Which of course replace "Shane" with your username :-)

Check those two spots and see if they have what you are looking for. If they dont then you know something removed them and why the start menu is so bare.

If they do have all the folders and shortcuts you are looking for then for some reason the start menu is looking in the wrong spot, which we can look into :-)

Shane

Washbush:
Wow.  This is interesting. 

In the first case, (C:\Program Data ... Start Menu\) there is an additional folder there called "Programs" and in it are the items that do now show in All Programs and some of the missing ones, but not all of them.  In fact, I would say "a few of the missing one's".  The string should say "C:\Program Data ... Start Menu\Programs\", I think. 

In the second case, (C:\Users ... Start Menu\) there is nothing at all by the name of "Start Menu". 

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