Yes, because the Start Menu icon in that location is just a symbolic link. Its only there for compatibility, but its not meant to be accessed directly.

The Start Menu's real location is
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\  
for the specific user.

While the general Start Menu used by most installers is

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

The easiest way to access these is to right click on the All Programs link from the start menu and click on Open, or Open All Users for each location respectively.

ProgramData is a hidden folder, so you may need to set the Folder view to show hidden files and folders.

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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/
 

This is the reason that I was given by a Microsoft Tech in the early days of Vista concerning these type of Access Denied messages.

"The junctions are there to only provide appcompat for legacy apps and aren't meant for a user to traverse through. The junctions have been explicitly set to block read through them by setting Everyone Deny Read. The main reason here is because these are just links to the actual location, so you dont want backup tools and other tools operating on your data twice, once from the original path and once via the junctions. There are scenarios where some of these junctions actually form a loop to support the appcompat for the old namespace in comparison to the new and in those cases allowing read through them is disastrous, for e.g. setup was broken for a week when the file system wasnt honoring the deny read.

Also as far as a user goes, you will never see these as they are system hidden, and you will need to take explicit action to see them by default."


In other words don't fiddle with the file access permissions of these special links.

Thank you both for your replies.  I'll stop trying to mess with the permissions and use the correct folder.

Microsofts rationale is interesting and can be summarised as 'We decided to change everything for no real reason, and then found that all the usefull software didn't work so we had to find a way of backtracking'.

On a related note, is it possible to pin folders to the Start Menu.

The reason I ask is that until my previous machine died a week ago I was using XP and had tailored the menu to make it more convenient for my wife.

The main thing I had done was add a 'Mum' entry in the top bit of the Start Menu so that she could easily find and use the bits she regularly used.

I can pin individual programs, but not folders.  I have found how to do this by changing the registry, but am not very keen on that.  Do either of you gentlemen know how to do it or have a comment on the registry hack?

Just drag the folder to the start menu button. It will then open the Star Menu and you can drop it in. You'll even get a little legend that confirms you want to pin it to the start menu.



 

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.
http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/