A HP Pavilion dv6 laptop (Intel i5 M430 CPU at 2.27GHz, 4 Gb of RAM) with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit was infected with the fake antivirus "Windows 7 Recovery" (and many others virus by the way). The computer was protected by a service offered by the ISP. The Windows Restore Tool showed no previous point of restoration. Thanks to autoruns.exe from the Sysinternals Suite I was able to neutralize the virus and to delete it. After the installation of Microsoft Security Essentials, a complete scan found and cleaned 8 viruses, a scan with HouseCall found and cleaned 8 more. MalwareBytes' Antimalware found one more. The symptoms of the infection: no icons on the Taskbar, the Startmenu and the All Programs menu. No access to the Task Manager. When going to the Internet fake windows showing false infections and problems popped up. By suppressing or changing keys in the registry which were changed or added by the virus, I was able to restore the access to the Task Manager and almost all the icons that were hidden by the virus, but the icons in the the Start menu and the All Programs menu remained empty, except for the programs that I have installed (MSE and MalwareBytes' Antimalware). My question is : do you know a solution to reset the complete list of icons (folders and shortcuts of programs) in the All Programs menu? Your help will be greatly appreciated.Joseph Aussedat

Hi, Thanks for posting in Microsoft TechNet Forum. Please check the following registry values: Note: you could backup registry before modify registry value. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders Start Menu should be %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu Programs should be %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs Meanwhile, negative to the following value: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders Common Start Menu should be %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu Common Programs should be %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs If this issue persists, you could also try to create a new user profile to check how it works, if this issue does not occur in new user account, we can try to fix the user profile: Fix a corrupted user profile Hope it helps. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, I had the same virus but still experience this problem where there are no links in the start menu folders. It says Empty. I tried what you suggested above but to no avail. Also, I cannot find accessories like the calculator that Win 7 came with. How can I get that back? Please advise. Thanks!

I am having the same issues, no Task Manager,no links in my All Programs from the Start Menu, Desktop Theme gone...all stemming from this Trojan(?) "Windows 7 Recovery" that infected my laptop. I need some step by step help, Please.

This seems to possibly be a larger problem then we might think. I have been trying for some time now to post my issue on the forum site but the submit button seems to be broken. I too have the issue where my start menu is empty, however, the only way to access the desktop is ctrl + alt + del and start task manager, then my desktop pops up and I can continue on. I have had no viruses or malware, I scan my computer frequently with 2 different programs 1 av, 1 malware. its not a huge issue but you could imagine my reaction the first time it happened, it took me 20 minutes searching in the start menu, until finally I hit ctrl + alt + del and saw task manager there and there was the desktop. putting my mouse in the bottom left hand corner of the screen now shows only a black box. no app access at all. control panel works normally. search function brings up the start menu like screen which makes you stuck, task manager again brings back the desktop. im not sure if im telling this info to the right place or not, but as far as i know the built in feedback was only available from the start menu. thank you Joshua L.