Programs menu on Start-menu column--where does it look for Programs?

[jsteph]

Hi all,
The subject line may not be the best at describing my question...but when I hit the Programs 'link' in the windows 7 start-menu, it appears to be looking in my alternate D, E and F harddrives for programs.

I'm assuming the Programs link just looks up what's in:
"C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\"
and
"C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\"

My issue stems from the fact that I got an SSD drive as my "C:\" system drive for the sole purpose of booting quickly and navigating and opening all my programs quickly, while letting my bulk data sit on spindle drives that sleep most of the time. So the bootup part is good, then when I hit Start--still good--then I hit the "Programs" link and....
...the mouse dies, the screen freezes, and I hear my hard drives spin up, and I wait and wait, then finally the programs show up. The question is: Why?

I don't have a single program installed on my spindle hard-drives. The Programs menu has no business looking there either, if I'm correct about the above locations. I've never installed a program (that I know of) where I've actively specified a different drive than the default C:\program files directory.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone knows if it's something in windows that feels the need to 'peek' in every volume when I hit that Programs link, and if there's any setting or something to prevent it from doing so.
Thanks for any help,
--Jim

 

[rclarke250]

I don't know what kind of issue you are seeing, as I have most of the OS on the C: drive, with a linked users,download,program data on C: and D:. C: is a Kingston v100 96GB SSD, D: is a Hitachi 500 GB sata 3.
The SSD is on the internal Intel sata 2 controller, and the Hitachi is on the Marvell internal sata 3 controller. Anyways, I have programs, and data on both drives, and I have zero lag. I think you may have some setting not set right, not sure what though. The only lag I get is sometimes my NAS shared drive takes 20 seconds to populate all of the folders, and it syncs with windows.

 

[linney]

If you right-click on the Shortcut link and select Properties/Shortcut, where is the link pointing to in the "Target" box?

 

[jsteph]

linney,
I haven't checked all the links--there are several dozen if not in the hundreds when all of the Uninstall, readme's, etc that programs put in their shortcut folder...but I suppose it's possible that one may be an old, dead link that for some reason may have been installed on an alternate drive. I don't ever remember doing that, but it's possible. I'll have to find a way to script it and delete the offending link. I think that's all it could be.
--Jim