As originally documented at Electric Dreams blog:
This happens when there are more than about 70 folders in the ‘All Programs’ menu. There are two simple workarounds I have come up with (try one or both, as is appropriate to your circumstances):
- Uninstall programs until there is <70 folders in the All Programs menu.
- Use Windows Explorer (Windows-E) to browse the All Programs folder (typically C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs) and reorganise some of the folders into a subfolder. For example, create a Utilities folder and drag some of the other folders inside it. There must be <70 folders in the top level.
2
Dupe: http://superuser.com/questions/21519/all-start-menu-items-have-disappeared
– Ciaran – 2009-08-19T19:37:35.157