shortcut in start menu are gone

[faye]

Hi,

I mean when you press "windows" button or the "start" button, when the little bar pop up on the left corner.

there should be some shortcut of the recently programs i've opened.
but now they are gone and never come back.
how can i put it back on?

I am using Windows 7 Professional.
I have right click on the bar and select both "store and display recently opened program" but the shortcut just won't show up no matter how many times i have reopen the program. Such as excel, word.

How can i put it back on?

 

[SetecAstronomy]

This may not be the solution but the first thing to check would to confirm the # of recent programs to display is not set to 0. Right click task bar - Properties - Start Menu tab - Customize - Make sure "number of recent programs to display" is higher than 0.

Keep in mind the only situations i have seen this spontaneously occur is as a side effect of malware infection. Of course that's not the only reason it could have occurred.

 

[faye]

it said 10

 

[faye]

now when i run "cclean" the start menu shortcut will be removed.
actually what function i need to remove to have the shortcuts remain when i run cclean?

 

[Dahak]

Under the windows tab in the main windows there is the heading called system. Under system there is an option for Start Menu Shortcuts, would have to leave that unchecked, which it is by default

 

[corkyg]

If you over cleaned with CClean, why not use the Restore function in CClean?

 

[faye]

Dahak: both are checked
corkyg: good idea, i have restore the default.

I think the registry has been changed, anybody knows where i can change the value manually? i don't know the address under the regedit

 

[Steltek]

Click on the Start Menu, right click on All Programs, then select Open All Users. In the Explorer window that opens, click on the Programs folder. Are there any folders and shortcuts displayed in the Programs folder? If so, what is the total number (folders and shortcuts together)?

 

[faye]

folders and items altogether 52 items

what does it do?

 

[Steltek]

folders and items altogether 52 items

what does it do?

These are actually part of the items that should be displaying in your Start Menu. The reason I was asking the total number there is that having too many items in this folder can sometimes trigger a known bug causing the contents of the Start Menu to not display. In this case, the number you have are ok.

Are there any shortcuts in the Programs folder, or just folders? If you click on All Programs, do the regular shortcuts and installed program folders display?

One thing you can try is to create a new user profile and see if the problem exists in the new profile. If the new profile works properly, the original profile is probably corrupted.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Windows7/Fix-a-corrupted-user-profile

 

[faye]

sorry, may be i have misleaded, i mean the shortcuts for the programs i've recently opened.

 

[Steltek]

sorry, may be i have misleaded, i mean the shortcuts for the programs i've recently opened.

I think I'd still create a new user account to see if the profile is damaged. If you create a new account and the start menu works properly, you can use the instructions at the link I previously provided to copy your data to the new profile, then delete the old one.