start menu... missing programs...

HI


What you could do and both are longish tasks is to either....

Open up your Program Files folder and find the .exe file for running each of the applications and dragging them to your start menu, this will create shortcuts ( may have to rename most though to their proper names )

or right click your Start button and choose Properties > on classic menu click customise and then click Add and then browse for the applications in the Program files folder.

or re-install or do a repair* of the software, which will add the start menu shortcuts back, installing the application over the top of itself, generally will allow many of your customised settings in many apps to remain ok.​

*if available.... MS Office is one such application, so open say Word and click Help > Detect and Repair ( some office versions are different )

 

First, login as Administrator (or equivalent) and execute this command from Start, Run dialog:
regsvr32 /i shell32.dll
Restart Windows. If that does not help, inspect and fix the the Shell Folder data for Start Menu, Programs, Common Start Menu and Common Programs.
NOTE: Backup the Registry before modifying it.

Typing REGEDIT.EXE in the Start, Run dialog. Fix the data for these four registry values: (The defaults can be taken from here>>>

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/usershellfolders.htm

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Common Start Menu
Common Programs
Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Start Menu
Programs
If Common Programs value is not available in the right-pane, create a new REG_EXPAND_SZ value named Common Programs and assign the data as said above. Restart Windows for the changes to take effect.