This problem is an annoyance that may randomly affect you if you’re using the beta or RC of Windows 7, and it’s a doozy.  Some random permissions problem occurs and none of your Programs show in the All Programs menu on your start menu.  This means you can’t start any program that isn’t pinned to the task bar without digging through explorer to find the start menu items.  I thought I’d write about this because apparently, not many people have written about it, so it’s best to get the fix onto search engines so the next person has an easier time fixing this problem.

<SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR AN UPDATE TO THIS ISSUE>

In the above image, notice the start menu after clicking “All Programs” remains blank.  It should look like this.  I didn’t notice the exact moment this happened, but by all accounts, the problem is that somewhere in Windows a permission problem develops, which results in the Start Menu > All Programs items no longer showing up.  In researching the problem I saw that people tried all sorts of things varying from switching off some of the aero eye candy and switching it back on, to trying to set permissions on the start menu folders to editing the registry.

The good news is, the fix is much, much simpler.  To fix the problem, you have to go to the Windows Start Menu folder, in x:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu for all users collectively.  Move the “Programs” folder to your desktop and then back into x:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu and your programs installed for all users are instantly back in your start menu.  Make sure you move the folder out instead of copying it.  For some reason the folder has to go away and then be created again for it to show up.

That’s just half the battle though.  If you look at your start menu, you’ll notice only a handful of your programs repopulated in the start menu.  This is because most of your programs chose to install themselves for the user who installed the program, and placed the start menu icons for said programs in the user account profile.  Just as the first start menu was much harder to locate than in XP or earlier, the user profile start menu is even harder to find.  It is located in x:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu .  You have to open that folder in Explorer and repeat the process.  Move the “Programs” folder to the desktop, again making sure to move and not copy it, and then back into x:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu . Voila, your entire Start Menu > All Programs list is back in action.

There’s one more annoying bug that could happen, that’s just as annoying to fix.  If you do like I do, you take advantage of the condensed task bar.  I actually expanded mine to two rows and pin every program I might use more than just on rare occasions to it.  What eventually seems to happen is that with enough time, the task bar icons might get corrupted.  To the user, the program loses it’s icon and results to a blank sheet of paper icon as shown below:

Clicking the icon then is normally futile as Windows will complain and not launch the program, although hovering over the icon will tell you what it is.  The fix is simple, yet annoying.  You have to delete the offending icon and then go back to the start menu, find the original icon and re-pin it to the task bar.

These are two random bugs in a beta OS, and their fixes.  Hopefully this helps someone save time fixing these problems.  It took me 5 minutes to find out 2/3rds of the solution by searching online, but when a fix hasn’t affected many users, the solution is usually hard for the average user to find.  It usually exists as parts on the solution on more than one discussion board where the language is over the average user’s head, and not expanded upon fully enough to be understandable.  So I took my 5 minutes of research and added 30 minutes of blog preparation to it so that hopefully the next person sees this posting on google and doesn’t have to do any legwork to figure it out.  I’m assuming that as this is a beta OS, this problem has been reported and won’t be in the final release, but I’m also assuming there will be some cowboys out there like myself who might wait until the computer starts shutting down in March to buy the retail version of Windows 7.  Peace be with you.

UPDATE:  This fix doesn’t work past a certain point.  Upon further research the problem seems to be that the start menu can only handle a certain # of items in it (folders and icons).  The number has been estimated at about 77 at which point performing the fix mentioned above only works temporarily before it stops again.  The better workaround is to click start, then right click “All Programs” and select open all users.  Create a new folder (ie “rarely used stuff”) and copy enough folders or shortcuts into it to allow you’re start menu to work again.  The problem wasn’t related to permissions, rather installing programs pushed your computer over the limit that the beta and RC could handle.  Hopefully Microsoft will have this fixed in the final release.  This is the kind of bug you might expect in pre-release software, but should never be present in a retail product.