Newly installed programs show empty start menu folders

What anti virus softawre are you running and is it up to date? What do you mean by the Start Menu? W hat program is this on?

IonicRipper said:

Start Menu: Click Start (window button on the bottom left) and All Programs.
Still don't know what folder you are referring to!Do you mean when you click "All Programs" nothing is in the list?
Im not sure what you mean on your last question.
It means what Program have you installed when this happens. 7 Home x64 SP1 is the OS not a program!
If you meant what operating system its 7 Home x64 SP1.

See my red entries above

Now i am confused. You said originally

Every time i install a new program or whatnot the start menu folder is always empty.

But if they are empty how come you can access them? You can't access an empty Folder. It would just come up with the messsage "This folder is empty"

Something to check out.
Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
Check the Security settings under the Application directory. Mine is shown below. The only one in mine that has full control is Administrators of HomeI (my computer name) computer. but you can add or grant permissions as you wish. For instance "Everyone" could have full control or your user name also.

Attachment 227157

I have added a couple of links one to a tutorial on customizing the start menu from this forum and a link
to the how to geek. If you read through these and check out your start menu as you read you may find your problem. Since my start menu is ok, I can't point you to the exact cause.

Start Menu - Customize

Tweak the Start Menu in Windows 7 and Vista - How-To Geek

Post back, If you can't find the menus I am refering to we will give some more info.

Try granting full control to everyone. Install something as a test and then you can change it back.

The directory above also enters into it.