Recent Places and "All Programs" Are Empty

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.

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.