Start Menu folder missing

Hi ,
I'm helping out a friend with a peculiar problem.

Details: XP Home - 1 user -automatic login to desktop - no Welcome screen.
Per "normal" , the list of programs shown via Start button > Start Menu > All Programs, is a combination of the contents of 2 folders:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs and
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Start Menu\Programs

BUT, in this case it's not normal.
Problem is, there is NO Start Menu folder under the User account,
yet under All Programs, all the shortcuts are shown.
Numbers : 100 entries on the All Programs list. - 60 are from- and shown in- All Users\Start Menu\Programs.
Since there is no Start Menu folder in the User account,where are the other 40 User shortcuts located?
I checked and they're neither under Admin account nor Default User account.

Appreciate some help in getting this puzzle solved

Pete.

 

That is odd!

Let's see what you get when you type the following into a Run Window:

%userprofile%\start menu\programs <press enter or click OK>

 

Hi, thanks for responding to my question.
Unfortunately, neither a Run nor Cmd window will work.
What I get is " The system cannot find the path specified "

Stranger yet - I tried this on my own system and get the same response
and I do have both folders in place.
Since there's more than 1 partition on the drive, should it include the drive letter?

I was doing this remotely - at the moment I don't have any connection to the machine.
Will get back later today to report any other findings.

Thanks,
Pete.

 

No, it will always determine the current System Drive and apply the command accordingly.

You have to be resident on the system with the problem when running the Environmental Variable I gave earlier. I'm unclear as to how you were accessing the flawed system.

 

Hi,

I was using AMMYY Admin for a while,but since they pretty well cut off previous users, I tried TeamViewer and it works like a charm.

Well,I've got good news - I did find the elusive Start menu folder.
Strangely enough, it was under Default User\Templates\Start Menu\
The Program folder under this Start Menu, listed all the (User) shortcuts that the User sees in the Start > Start Menu > All Programs list.
So I transferred it to its proper location.
The only thing left now, is to do a Registry scan to reconcile the entries with this location and delete the old references.

Thanks very much for providing encouragement to dig some more.
(Trying to be true to my nick )

Pete.

 

Thanks for the update. I'm glad you got it sorted. Perhaps it got in that location by someone doing an inadvertant drag and drop via some spastic act. I doubt you have to change any registry references.

All the best,

Dude

 

Hi Dude,

You're welcome and here's another one
After the transfer of that folder, all User entries were missing in the All Programs
list.I expected that,since the path had changed.A reboot did not correct that.
It wasn't until I changed (corrected) the paths in the Registry, that they all came back.(as expected )
So it worked out fine.

I think you're right about the inadvertent drag&drop.However,in that case they would have lost their shortcuts (links) ,just like I did when I moved the folder back to its "normal" location.
Can't explain how it was working afterwards.
I guess somebody reconciled those links at some point.

Pete.