Moving Program Icon Back To Start Menu

[hlewton]

On a friend’s computer he accidentally moved the Outlook icon, I think it is the program itself, from the Microsoft Office folder in the Start menu to his desktop. He called me when he did it. I had him try a “Ctrl Z” but that did not fix it. He is bringing his computer over and I am going to try to get it back to where it belongs in the Start menu’s Microsoft Office folder. I was thinking I could just left click it, drag it to the Start menu, wait until it opened, choose Microsoft Office Folder and drop it there. I searched the WEB to confirm this but did not come up with that solution at all. I did find this, “That's not a problem and is easy to recover. You're going to want to go to where the files and folders are stored in your start-menu and the easiest way to do this is to open your start menu, go into all programs and on another folder right-click and choose explorer. That will put you in the location where that folder and shortcuts are stored. From there, just go up a level and move the folder back from the desktop and you should be good.

For information, there are 2 folders that make up what you see in the start menu, a common (or public) one and a private one. Both get merged to give a seemless view.

The common (public) one is at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

and the private one is at C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

The above folders are below hidden folders so you'll have to turn on the ability to view hidden files and folders first but the right-click explore method is the easiest way to get there anyway.

Finally, if you want to create a shortcut of a folder in the start menu, just find it and then right-click and choose "Send-To". Below that menu you'll see an option to create a desktop shortcut.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck & Enjoy Windows 7”

I believe the above refers to moving an entire Start Menu folder to the Desktop where I will only be dealing with one program from within a specific folder. So I was practicing on my computer and when I right clicked on the Microsoft Office Folder in my Start Menu I was not given the option to open Explorer as it says above I should do but “Open” was an option and it looks to me like it is an Explorer window that opens So I think I’m fine that way, not 100% certain but believe it is the same as if I were presented with the Explorer option. However I am still curious if the method I first mentioned about dragging the icon from the desktop and waiting until All Programs open and then dropping the icon onto the MS Office folder would work.

Thanks

[HansV]

Yes, you should be able to do the following:
- Drag the Outlook shortcut (icon) to the Start button, then wait until the Start menu pops up.
- Drag the icon to All Programs, then wait until the All Programs menu appears.
- Move the icon to Microsoft Office, then wait until the Office submenu appears.
- Move the icon to the location within the submenu where you want it, then release the mouse button.

[hlewton]

Thanks I thought it would work that way but have never done it before.