Thanks for your efforts K but As I have said above I have got rid of the virus itself, my question relates to restoring the All Programs shortcuts. I have done a lot of work restoring my machine and am getting to the position that I might have to reformat the drive and do a fresh install of everything, after which I shall install malware bytes and purchase this program specifically to get protection from this.

People should know that this SOAB also hides all the contents of your main user folder and generally ferrets around altering internet options, turning the screen black and all sorts of other nasties.

On further consdieration, I might even get an SSD drive for my system drive - this may be the time

It's a puzzle that you can't simply restore the shorctus in the Start/ All Programs folders, as its just an algo to copy a short cut for each app.


Now.. if only I could find the guy that actually wrote this virus...

Zero


Win 11 64, Asus Rog Strix z390 mobo, 64 gig RAM, 8700k