Start menu shortcuts have disappeared in XP Pro

[vertigo]

Hi chaps,
My wife's PC's decided that it doesn't really fancy having most of her program shortcuts around in the start menu any more and they've disappeared. We don't really know why as neither of us has run anything that would do it like a PC maintenance app, and we definitely don't have a virus, spyware or other nasty.
Does anyone know how we can go about restoring them? Is there a backed up version of them kept anywhere? I don't use system restore points but I'm not sure if her install does. Apart from that I can't think of any other ideas outside of going through the Program Files directory and manually creating shortcuts again.
Cheers.

[EvilBoris]

Do you mean the Start menu shortcuts under all programs all the ones that are just there straight away when you click start?

If it is the 2nd thing, that is a list of the most commonly used/recently used programs and they will come back once you have used the program again

[vertigo]

When you click start and go into Programs, the vast majority of her shortcuts have disappeared. There still remains about 20 though, which is the weird thing because it's not like they've all disappeared. You're thinking of when you have the Personalised Menus option enabled, which isn't the case here as it's a bollocks waste of time (why only show you a little bit of the stuff you can do, like in Office? ****ing dumb idea designed to plebify computers for the masses so that they don't get scared off!) and hence we both hate it and don't use it.
Any further ideas, anyone? Or is this going to end up being a fun drag and drop job for me?

[MonkeyWrench]

This might sounds stupid, but there's no little arrow at the bottom of the menu?

Also what do you see if you goto - C:\Documents and Settings\%your profile%\Start Menu\Programs ?

[vertigo]

No, there isn't an arrow, like I said. And they're not hanging around in the Start Menu directory where they should be. I haven't got the slighest clue why they've disappeared as we haven't run any PC tidying app and definitely don't have any virus or spyware. It's really bizarre.

[MonkeyWrench]

You PC is possessed...take it to a priest!

[vertigo]

Yeh I know! I know a druid. Will that do?