Installed progrqams not showing under All Programs

Hi guys, first time poster here. I'm an intermediate user, been running Windows since 3.0, and am fairly comfortable poking around with anything under the hood. I've just bought my first Win7 computer, and it has me scratching my head on a few issues. I've done a search of the forums, but had no luck with one specific issue.

I'm running Home Premium, and I have My Admin account and 2 separate user accounts. I install all programs using the Admin account. Some programs, such as Office 2010 and Adobe Reader, installed easily with the programs listed under each user's "All Programs" area on the start menu. Other programs installed and showed up under Admin's "All Programs", but will not show up in the other users' "All Programs". None of these programs asked if I wanted to install for just the active user account or for all accounts, they just installed.

I can still run these programs by doing a search and executing, so I have access to them. I know I can create shortcuts or pin them to the taskbar, but I really don't like the clutter. How can get these programs to show up under "All Programs" for all users?

Thanks in advance for any help, I've already learned tons from this site!

Thomas

We are talking about shortcuts here not programs. An app installer may choose to add a shortcut to the start menu, or not, depends entirely on the author of the app.

You can customize the start menu the way you want. Browse through C:\Program Files to find the program .exe, right-click it, select Copy, browse to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs, right-click any blank area in the window, and select Paste Shortcut. That will give you the Start Menu (All Programs) shortcut. Remember, Programdata is a hidden folder so you need to unhide hidden files and folders for it to show up.

Bill2 said:

We are talking about shortcuts here not programs. An app installer may choose to add a shortcut to the start menu, or not, depends entirely on the author of the app.

You can customize the start menu the way you want. Browse through C:\Program Files to find the program .exe, right-click it, select Copy, browse to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs, right-click any blank area in the window, and select Paste Shortcut. That will give you the Start Menu (All Programs) shortcut. Remember, Programdata is a hidden folder so you need to unhide hidden files and folders for it to show up.

Thanks for the quick reply. I realize that we're talking about shortcuts, sorry I didn't make myself clearer. However, when I follow your directions I get the message "Windows can't create a shortcut here. Do you want the shortcut to be placed on the desktop instead?" Which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I followed your instructions to the letter. Any idea where I'm going wrong?

Thanks again

That issue is related to user privileges. One way to take care of that is to temporarily turn off UAC, then you'll be able to create a shortcut there.

Turn User Account Control on or off

Alternatively, right click on the program icon and select Create a shortcut. Copy the shortcut. Now Open C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and paste your shortcut there. You will get a confirmation window with a message "You'll need to provide administrative permission...", so click Continue.

Another way is to open an elevated command prompt, then use the Copy command.

Assuming you really have admin rights, you shouldn't have any issues moving shortcuts from one spot to another. However, anytime I mess around with my Start Menu (usually after a new install), I disable UAC until I get the icons cleaned up.

Bill2 beat me to it.

Bill2 said:

That issue is related to user privileges. One way to take care of that is to temporarily turn off UAC, then you'll be able to create a shortcut there.

Turn User Account Control on or off

Alternatively, right click on the program icon and select Create a shortcut. Copy the shortcut. Now Open C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and paste your shortcut there. You will get a confirmation window with a message "You'll need to provide administrative permission...", so click Continue.

Another way is to open an elevated command prompt, then use the Copy command.

Worked like a charm! Thanks a lot, +1 on the rep....