Windows 7 ‘Start Menu’

I am a big fan of customizing the Windows Start menu to consolidate the programs into folders that make items easier to find (and yes, I keep my inbox devoid of all email that I am not presently working with).

In Windows XP and earlier, this was done by right clicking the start button and selecting ‘Open Folder’ or ‘Open All Users’; These folders were located in c:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Start Menu and C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu. Using these two folders I could drag around/cut/paste/delete the icons to make my Start menu folder look like I wanted it to appear:

In Windows 7 the ‘Open Folder’ and ‘Open All Users’ options have been removed (I am pretty sure this was present in Vista). The actual ‘Start Menu’ folder location appears to have moved around a bit in Windows 7 (and possibly Windows Vista); The ‘main’ repository for the Start Menu items is located in:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\

An individual’s start menu items are now located in:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

…and there is another folder for ‘All Users’:

C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

I believe the later two are ‘legacy’ locations for older programs that insist on installing program items for ‘current user or all users’.