Start Menu disappeared, taskbar freezing...

Hi guys, I've been running Vista x64 for just under 2 months and
everything was fine up until today. All of a sudden while using my pc,
the shortcuts and internet explorer/email links have disappeared within
my start menu (everything on the right side is still there) leaving a
huge white space. Also, right-clicking on my taskbar and going to
properties, followed by changing something to do with either the
start-menu or the toolbars makes the window hang and taskbar/start menu
hang, and explorer needs to be restarted. I installed a few programs
today: Photoshop CS3, PowerISO, MagicISO (couple of my standard tools)
but none of these should have affected my setup. I've tried checking
error reports, setting diagnostic mode in msconfig, booting in safe
mode, checking for viruses with Kaspersky, uninstalling MagicISO and
PowerISO but no help. I REALLY don't want to have to reinstall Vista,
and if it comes down to it I'll probably reinstall XP as I've never had
any problems like this before, so help me make my Vista purchase worth
it!


--
Rajveer

Is your video card driver up to date?

Boot from your Windows Vista DVD, select the System Repair Option > on the
setup screen, select 'Repair Computer > Select your installation of Windows
> select Startup Repair option and follow instructions.

Yup, got the latest 8800 driver. If I do a Vista repair, what exactly
does it do? What will it reset? Will I have to reinstall updates, will I
lose anything? I'm a bit wary about doing a repair, as I've heard that
it's a temporary fix to a problem which may come round again, if this
true?


--
Rajveer

Ok I tried to do a Startup Repair but it found no problems. Startup
Repair only checks startup problems right, and not problems with the
whole installation, so that makes sense. It seems as if the repair
installation option has been removed from Vista, so I tried "SFC
/SCANNOW" to check for file integrity and it found nothing.

I am so confused, doesn't seem to be software incompatibility as it
would have been fine under safe mode or diagnostics mode, but its not
finding any problems :confused:


--
Rajveer

After some testing, I've found its the ntuser.dat file which is causing
trouble. Problem is since this file contains the whole of the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER section of the registry, replacing it will mean I will
lose all of my application specific settings. So I think the first
option would be to try and fix the registry, and since I have no idea
where to start looking within it do you have any ideas about what I
should try?


--
Rajveer

I've figured out the problem and thought I'd post the solution incase
anybody else comes across this problem. I tracked the bug down to
ProgramsCache in
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Start
Page". So I backed it up and replaced it with the one from a newly
created temporary user, and its working normally now. It hasn't changed
the list of programs in the start menu so I'm not too sure what it does,
but it works so I cant complain!


--
Rajveer

I have the same problem with the start menu and the taskbar freezing. aftea
computer scan, it says that there are no problems but the problem still
there. I don't want to go back to XP but getting tired of vista problems.
please help, and thanks.

To Andre Da Costa:

Thanks so much for your answer.

My taskbar and start menu were missing from my windows desktop on my new HP laptop. I came here for a solution.

I booted from my Windows Vista DVD and a popup said that windows saw a problem. It automatically found that my windows explorer had a problem and fixed it immediately. I didn't have to do anything else.

I would not have thought of using the Vista DVD but I will if this happens again, thanks to you. KUDO's :)