As you were.

I noted something you said, a clue. Dr. Gregory House takes 50 minutes (incl commercials) to do this and it only took me 10. Then he tells the patient of his semipermanent handicap.

One day recently I was following the advice of my hero, Homer Simpson, "If you never take a stupid risk then nothing interesting will happen." I was trying to make Winzip create a ZIP file to distribute a little program to my friends. I wanted it to create the folder in Program Files and put a shortcut into the Start Menu.

Well, the entire menu system is a folder, C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu. In it are (normally) are nothing but shortcuts and subfolders of shortcuts. Indeed, instead of Start > Settings > Taskbar & Start Menu to edit it, you could fool with it right there. And you don't just have to put in links and folders. You could toss a program or a document in there directly! Go ahead and experiment with it! It's safe!

But some option in WinZip was not. I erased the entire contents of my Start Menu folder. Gone. That sounds like what you have.

D'oh!

So I've been reconstructing the menu system as needed. All my favorite options were littered as icons on the Desktop and in the Quick Launch tray. The menu system was loaded with junk and it was time to start fresh. I've been adding items one at a time and anytime I update a product it throws its stuff in.