Start Menu folder on desktop?

All of a sudden, I have a Start Menu folder on my desktop, which
wasn't there yesterday.

If I right click it, the only options are:

Open
Explore
Search

Paste
Create Shortcut

Tried dragging it to my Recycle BVin, but it won't let me, (which is
probably a good thing, right?)

How did this get moved from it's natural location, and how do I get it
back where it belongs, please?

[quixote23]

Hey, I'm having the same problem - a "Start Menu" folder appeared on my desktop after I changed the order of some programs in my start menu, and I can't figure out how it got there or how to get rid of it. Did you ever figure out a solution to your problem?

Count me in also. Starting about 3 days ago the startup folder appears on
Startup. It's not in the Windows Defender list to disable and I have no idea
what it's called in Task Manager "Processes" to end it so am at a loss. Hope
we all get help on this one. Is it the phase of the moon?

I was stuck with HP's share to web on my desktop a couple of weeks ago, I am
a relative learner but after learning to put Administrator on my Welcome
page, I opened as Administrator, (me) and I could right click and remove it.

[elvishmaniac]

If anyone else has this problem, I found a solution to it that is much simpler than going into safe mode.

Right click the desktop, click 'Personalize' at the bottom of the menu, click 'Change desktop icons' on the left side, in the window that pops up click 'Restore default', press 'OK' and it should be gone.

I don't know if this will get rid of ALL icons, I only have Computer and Recycle on my desktop. So users with many icons can maybe try toggling the checkmarks a bit to see if that gets rid of it.

Anyways, this is what worked for me, and I thought I would post just so someone searching on Google might find this.

[Anointed]

yes that fixed it . nice trick thank you so much. how that happened i dont no but it scared me . and on top of it i almost deleated the folder lol sigh . thanks for the help.

[cnote]

I had the same problem and the solution above worked. This is one way to re-create the problem in case anyone is interested in de-bugging Vista SP2. It is obviously a M$ problem.

Open Control Panel (in Classic View) and right click on either Windows Update or Windows Firewall, then select Create Shortcut. This places a shortcut on your desktop. You can now close the Control Panel window. (it may work with any of the programs in the control panel, I only tested these two)

Right click on Start button and select Explore. Make that window smaller than your desktop.

Now drag the newly created control panel program shortcut off your desktop into the Start Menu folder. If your window is small enough and out of the way you will see the Start Folder just appear on the desktop as soon as you drop the shortcut into the folder.

I was doing that to have quick access to Windows Update from my start menu. Oh, and I should mention that I use Classic Start Menu under the Start Menu properties dialog box. You can do that by right clicking on the start button and selecting Properties, then select Start Menu tab and select Classic Start Menu. I like that menu better, it gives me that XP feel. I haven't tested this using the normal Vista start menu.

Then, to get rid of the Start Menu folder from the desktop, just use the "Change Desktop Icons" solution in the previous post with a few exceptions that I found. 1) I had to make some change and click Apply to make the folder disappear. I then changed it back to the original setting and clicked OK. 2) you then need to repeat the fix each time you add or delete "any" shortcuts to the Start Menu folder using the method above.

The weird thing is that once you reboot, and follow this process again. It won't add the Start Menu folder to the desktop by adding(drag/drop) and removing shortcuts until you add a shortcut that was created from the control panel.

Is this a bug that happens on ALL Vista machines???