Start Menu Weirdness

[anotheralanc]

Sorry to start my posts with a problem, but hopefully I can help others with issues I have managed to deal with.

I've been using Win 7 x64 Pro for a year now, and only now am I starting to see instability.

Mainly I am experiencing increased Start Menu ("All Programs") weirdness. After the computer has been on for a while, the All Programs icons and links will disappear. (Well, the icons will show for a split second, then vanish.) A recent variation had the "All Programs" caption and button disappear completely. A reboot restores normal behaviour... for a while.

I should mention that I have customised the Start Menu to behave like XP, with everything pinned and no system changes allowed.

Also, I have to rebuild the icon cache much more frequently, which might be related.

I have tried some of fixes I've seen on the Web, including trimming the All Programs list and putting links in subfolders. It makes no difference.

I did a search for this before posting, but I might have missed something. If so, please just point me to the relevant posts. Many thanks.

Alan

 

[nitroman84]

Welcome to SevenForums, have you tried a system file check? In an elevated command prompt type "sfc /scannow" without the quotes. This will scan for corrupted files and attempt to fix them.

 

[anotheralanc]

Good suggestion; I didn't know about "sfc /scannow".
It found corrupt files, some of which couldn't be fixed. No idea how that happened, I'm always obsessively careful.
The CBS log is full of entries and will take some working through.

Looks like a Repair Install is necessary?

Thanks,
Alan

 

[nitroman84]

I wouldn't go there just yet, sometimes multiple runs of the sfc command are needed to fix all corrupted files. I would restart and run it again at least a couple of times.

 

[logicearth]

"I should mention that I have customised the Start Menu to behave like XP, with everything pinned and no system changes allowed."

What exactly do you mean by this? What changes? That fact you are having start menu problems with that you made some kind of change to...

 

[anotheralanc]

What exactly do you mean by this?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear there. As soon as I installed Win 7 I found the dynamic behaviour of the main Start Menu annoying. I didn't want the order changing according to usage, so I took steps to lock it down. Unfortunately I can't remember what steps I took. I also edited the "All Programs" list by moving stuff to the "All Users" target until it matched previous XP systems. My rationale is I am only one user, so I move everything into All Users.

The point is, I did this over a year ago. My Start Menu problems are recent, starting no more than a couple of weeks ago. It seems unlikely that my customising my Start Menu has anything to do with it.

nitroman84 you are right about the "sfc" runs. A second run brought the log file size down from 24 MB to 10 KB! It is now readily interpretable. The elephant in the room is SP1, which Updates delivered between runs. It was an 87 MB download, which is the minimum apparently. So I think most of the SP1 fixes were already in place.

I will now watch the Start Menu carefully and hope SP1 fixes the problem. What are the chances?

Thanks for the replies,
Alan