Recent Places and "All Programs" Are Empty

dirkla · May 30, 2011

I had a virus last week. I managed to remove it, but since then I have 2 problems:

1) "Recent Places" in Windows Explorer is empty and stays empty.
2) The folders in "All Programs" in the start menu are empty.

Does anyone know how to fix these issues?

Cookieman · May 30, 2011

Hi there.... Try Unhide

Download unhide by grinler.
Double click on the program to start the unhide process.
Once done a window will pop and let you know the tool has completed its job.
See if cures your problems

dirkla · May 30, 2011

Thanks Cookieman, I tried unhide before, it brought back the shortcuts on my desktop, they were gone too.
It doesn't help the other issues unfortunately...

Brink · May 30, 2011

Hello Dirkla,

The tutorial below can help show you how to restore the default shortcuts in Start Menu -> All Programs, but you'll still have to manually create new shortcuts in the Start Menu for any installed programs from their exe files though.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...rams-windows-7-restore-default-shortcuts.html

You might see if resetting recent items may be able to help have them show later after opening them a few times.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

dirkla · May 31, 2011

Thanks for the suggestions Brink, restoring the start up menu worked.
The recent locations are still stuck though...

dirkla · May 31, 2011

There's something strange: when I right click and select open "All Programs" in the Start Menu I see 2 folders:

1) A (greyed out) shortcut to "Programma's" (this is Dutch, my Windows version is Dutch originally, but I changed the language to English): I can't access this folder (Access denied).
2) Programs: only 10 program shortcut folders are here, but about 50 show up in the "All Programs" in the Start Menu

Strange, it seems unhide changed something language-related...

Brink · May 31, 2011

Dirkla,

Could you post some screenshots of this to help see what it may be?

dirkla · Jun 6, 2011

So, when I right-click "all programs" in the start menu and select "open", I get this window:

Programma's (the Dutch folder) I can't open.
This is the "Programs" directory:

But as you can see, lot's of other (empty) folders are in the start menu:

Brink · Jun 6, 2011

Since those empty folders in the Start Menu are for programs, you would need to manually create new shortcuts in the Start Menu from the exe files of those programs to place in the folders. Another option, would to reinstall the programs to have them added back again as well.

dirkla · Jun 7, 2011

Thanks Brink, but where are all the folders that are in the programs start menu? In the 3rd screenshot you see folders for Adobe and such, but they are not in screenshot 1 or 2. It seems Windows is getting them from another location.

I wonder if the "Recent Locations"-problem has the same cause, is Windows storing recent locations in a wrong folder?

Brink · Jun 7, 2011

dirkla said:
Thanks Brink, but where are all the folders that are in the programs start menu? In the 3rd screenshot you see folders for Adobe and such, but they are not in screenshot 1 or 2. It seems Windows is getting them from another location.

I wonder if the "Recent Locations"-problem has the same cause, is Windows storing recent locations in a wrong folder?

You might check to see if the other folders are at the hidden location below.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

As a test, you might create a new administrator account to see how everything works while in it. If it's doing the same thing, then you might consider biting the bullet and reinstall Windows 7. Especially since this was all do to a virus.

dirkla · Jun 8, 2011

Brink said:
You might check to see if the other folders are at the hidden location below.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Yes, you are right, all the empty folders are there.

Brink said:
As a test, you might create a new administrator account to see how everything works while in it. If it's doing the same thing, then you might consider biting the bullet and reinstall Windows 7. Especially since this was all do to a virus.

I created a new administrator account in which the recent locations worked fine...

lehnerus2000 · Jun 8, 2011

HIdden? System?

You might want to check the attributes in the Properties window.
It may have set the folders to Hidden or System.

My friend got hit by one of those phony AV malware programs.
It kept changing settings like Hide extensions for known file types.
That's how we discovered that there were more files to delete.

Recent Places and "All Programs" Are Empty

dirkla

New member

My Computer

Cookieman

Internet Anarchist

My Computer

dirkla

New member

My Computer

Brink

Administrator

My Computer

dirkla

New member

My Computer

dirkla

New member

My Computer

Brink

Administrator

My Computer

dirkla

New member

My Computer

Brink

Administrator

My Computer

dirkla

New member

My Computer

Brink

Administrator

My Computer

dirkla

New member

My Computer

lehnerus2000

New member

My Computer