Programs Missing From Start Menu (Windows 10)

No no, the applications are not broken, the Windows 10 Start Menu is broken!  I will not be reinstalling my applications that work just fine.  I have encountered this problem with Remote Desktop, FileZilla, and Visio.  I can't find the common thing that makes these unable to be displayed in the Windows 10 Start Menu.  After awhile FileZilla suddenly showed up for no apparent reason, and now I can also pin it to the right-hand side of the start menu.

The shortcuts for these missing items appear in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ alongside the other shortcuts that are appearing.  What criteria is Windows using to determine what to display and what not to display?  In the old days just having the shortcut in the right folder was all you needed!

NealSD

Not Microsoft here, but a couple of things I'd mention that may help. (I had similar issues on an earlier upgrade). 

To add Chrome (or any other executable) to the taskbar or to pin to Start, first right click the executable, choose Send to, select Desktop, and that will create a shortcut to the program on your desktop.  Then you should be able to right click the shortcut, and pin it to either taskbar or Start.

Secondly, In addition to the location you mentioned (ProgramData), it seems the  All Apps menu also looks in C:\ User\[your name] \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs.  Try copying that whole Programs folder elsewhere (for safekeeping), and then delete everything any it.  You can copy any missing program shortcuts from your backup location to Programs under C:\ProgramData, and they may then show up in the All Apps.  Maybe.

A kludge of a workaround that I used for a while:  Right click the taskbar, choose Toolbars, New Toolbar, and then point to the Programs folder you mentioned under Program Data. This will at least let you access the shortcuts that are there.

I found that Windows 10 All Apps menu doesn't play nice with Start Menu folders nested more than one deep.

Hope some of that helps you work around this.

Keith

Keith,

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. Creating a shortcut on the desktop first has no effect on the issue.

2. Adding and removing shortcuts from both of these locations does not seem to help.  However, I did notice that when I select "pin to start" on a non-functioning application shortcut, that it creates a shortcut in C:\ User\[your name] \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs.  When I select "pin to start" on working application shortcuts it does not put a shortcut in that folder- so Windows is deciding to treat these specific programs differently for some reason- could it be something to do with compatibility settings or something?

3. Creating a toolbar on the taskbar does work and all shortcuts present in the selected folder do appear as expected, but as you say this is a kludgy workaround and doesn't quite get me what I want.

NealSD,

I'm surprised 1. isn't working for you - When I create a shortcut to, say excel.exe on the desktop, a right-click on that shortcut icon gives me options to pin to start, and to taskbar, both of which work on my system.

Regarding 2, I never did figure out the relationship between the two Programs folder locations, but had the most success by putting all my shortcuts under ProgramData, and deleting those under the Users folder.  If memory serves, I might have had to reboot to get the new shortcuts to show up in All Apps.  Also, (though I don't think this is your problem), I had to make sure all folders under Programs were only one level deep.

At least 3. worked, kludge that it is.

I eventually did a clean install on a new system, and the newly installed programs did all show up under All Apps - it's the upgraded system I had difficulty with.

Keith

I upgraded from Windows 7, so this is not a fresh install of Windows 10.

I rebooted the machine *again* but it didn't make any difference.

For programs that are appearing in the start menu "All Apps" section, I can certainly put a shortcut on my desktop and do "pin to start" or "pin to taskbar" and it all works as expected.

For these few programs that refuse to appear in the start menu "All Apps" section, the "pin to start" option creates a shortcut in C:\ User\[your name] \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs but does not make it appear in the start menu at all.  Also of interest is that for these programs the "add to taskbar" option does work just fine- so this issue is specific to the Windows 10 start menu, and is not affecting the task bar.

Another data point: I re-enabled the "Administrator" account and logged in with that.  It went through the "Hi", "Setting up your programs", "This won't take long", etc.  setup sequence, and when I got in everything was in the start menu "All Apps" section, and "pin to start" worked just fine for the trouble applications (Visio, Remote Desktop, and others).

This makes it look like a permissions issue of some kind, and instead of giving me some kind of error message Windows just silently fails.  Note that my user account IS AN ADMINISTRATOR, but I'm beginning to learn that this is not the same thing as actually being logged in as "Administrator".

If anybody out there knows how the "All Apps" section of the start menu is actually constructed that would probably help out a whole lot. 

Update:

I am pretty sure I am being affected by the "more than 512 apps" bug, which causes random apps to disappear from the Windows 10 Start Menu.  I apparently have 656 apps, as reported by Get-StartApps mentioned in the post below.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-10-can-t-display-more-than-512-apps-in-the-start-menu-488466.shtml

About a month ago they were testing a fix but I can't find anything that says when it will be released...

I am facing the same situation after upgrading to windows 10 from windows 7. This is not about pinning the programs to the taskbar or pinning the metro/live tiles to start menu. This has to do with the "All Apps" menu similar to "All Programs" menu in windows 7.

When I open I open the below location in file explorer, I see all the programs that were previously installed on Windows 7. However, I do not see all these programs in "All Apps" section.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

How do I make all the programs show up in all apps section? Do not tell me that the only option I have is to uninstall and install all of them, there are so many of them for it to be practical to redo.

All the apps are working fine when I launch from the above location. Just that I do not have the link in "All Apps" menu.

I have the same issue after upgrading from Win 7 and have confirmed that I have more than 512 apps using the following approach ref: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/07/windows-10-start-menu-breaks-with-more-than-512-apps/:

1. Bring up the Start menu and search for Windows Powershell.

2. Run Windows Powershell.

3. Run the command "Get-StartApps | measure" (without the quotes) in the command window.

"If you see a number larger than or equal to 512 you are affected by this issue. We are working on a fix to this issue."

What is really annoying is that:

a) following the Win 10 upgrade I found that the "All Apps" section included many items that are not even executables (e.g. some CAD programmes have shortcuts to design examples in folders at one level below the .exe in the Win7 start menu) and these shorcuts appear to count towards the "512 apps" limit; and

b) Editing the User Start menu folder (%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs) and All Users folder: (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs) to delete extraneous items and reduce the number of items to below 512 does not fix the issue. The old shortcuts are still displayed in the "All Apps" and any new executables are ignored.