All Program Menu gone / programs won't start

jenciso

This is my first post (and the first time I use RegSupreme) so I hope I'm not breaking any rules... at least not intentionally

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I see bdcheung1 allready posted something like this ("All Programs" menu gone after RegSupreme 1.4RC3) but he was redirected to:

http://www.macecraft.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1331

and the post was moved to the "Beta testing" forum.

The post that bdcheung1 was redirected to talked about MRU list, not about all program list, thats whyI'm reposting this...

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My problem is on a winXP SP2: ran RegSupreme in aggressive mode - took a while and found like 1400 invalid items (can't remember exactly how many). Saved a backup and pushed FIX...

It ran for some hours and after a restart everything had gone bad: the program menu (not the mru list - the program folders...) is gone and most progrma won't start because they try to install itself and claims

Error 1606: could not access network location "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%/start menu/programs/start/" or similar...

Also all my startup program (ZonaAlarm, AVG, Multidesk...) in the taskbar, are gone and won't start in a restart.

The wost thing is that I can't undo this with a recover from the backup - it won't help (unfortunately I turned OFF system restore last week because I needed the space on my HD... after 4 years of having it ON unnecessarily... but that is another lesson I had to learn ;-)

thank you and sorry if my english is poor...

redseujac

Since the latest version update of RegSupreme "Normal" scan no longer runs the MRU-scan module, while "Aggressive" mode runs it.

When running "Aggressive" mode alle those "HRZR_..." registry entries are listed and deleted after pressing "fix".

Deleting all those entries could affect the integrity of your (personalized) "Start menu" or even keep some programs from starting properly (e.g. Microsoft AutoRoute).

So it's recommended not to choose the Aggressive mode if you want to keep your Start Menu items intact and some programs starting properly.

jenciso

redseujac wrote
Deleting all those entries could affect the integrity of your (personalized) "Start menu" or even keep some programs from starting properly (e.g. Microsoft AutoRoute).

Thanks redsejauc, but you kind of emphasizes "some" and my trouble is not "some" - it's "all". I go to START > ALL PROGRAMS and there is nothing att all - nothing appears.

Are we still talking about the same problem???

Thanks in advance...

redseujac

jenciso wrote
... Thanks redsejauc, but you kind of emphasizes "some" and my trouble is not "some" - it's "all". I go to START > ALL PROGRAMS and there is nothing att all - nothing appears.

Are we still talking about the same problem?

I made a distinction between an "affected start menu" (like yours: start menu partially or completely gone) and "the impossibility to start programs" from within an existing start menu.

It's not normal the program "ran for some hours" to fix the found entries, even if there are more than 1000 entries listed.

Notice that those "HRZR_" entries can take several hundreds or thousand and more ones.

I cannot understand quite well why you are not able to restore the backup made by RegSupreme. What's the content of the subdirectory "Backups" of the directory RegSupreme is installed in?

redseujac

Jenciso

Look at this.

Maybe you're the victim of that "serious bug" :

It's most regrettable you didn't have Windows XP's "System Restore" enabled before running RegSupreme, nor you have made a backup of the registry with e.g. the very easy to use "Erunt" program, which is free and very fast moreover.

jenciso

Well, suppose that this is the case, if I could know WHICH of my valid data could have been deleted, maybe it would be possible to recreate them...?

You asked before if I can run my programs from outside of my start menu (for example c:/programs/adobe/acrobat/acrobat.exe or whatever...) and the answer is NO - some try to install themselves, and they are unable because they claim : Error 1606: could not access network location "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%/start menu/programs/start/" or similar...

but some other programs works fine - notepad and calculator... ;-)

And about the restoring the backup - it seems to restore the backup (if I run RegSupreme again after restoring it it founds about 4700 entries again...) only it doesn't make things any different. Can the backup have been corrupted in any way? (I mean from within RegSupreme, I don't mean from a defect HD...) Or could RegSupreme have maid something wrong while restoring?

I *promise* to never never never touch my register again before I make a backup... :-s (I really thought I had system restore ON... dind't count whith the human factor)

thanks anyway

jenciso

OK, I solved this by myself:

in the restoring of the backup, the following entries was set to REG_SZ:

"Common Desktop"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Escritorio"

"Common Start Menu"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Menú Inicio"

"Common Startup"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Menú Inicio\\Programas\\Inicio"

"Common Templates"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Plantillas"

"Common Favorites"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Favoritos"

"Common Documents"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Documentos"

"Common Administrative Tools"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Menú Inicio\\Programas\\Accesorios\\Herramientas administrativas"

"Common AppData"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Datos de programa"

@=""

"Common Programs"="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\\Menú Inicio\\Programas"

I changed them to be REG_EXPAND_SZ (using regedit) and it solved everything!

...don't really know where I read about this on microsoft, but you probably can explain better than me why this should be set this way when there are environments variables in the value...

thanks for everything anyway.

Now I will backup averything (twice!) and try again with the new version...