I am wanting to make a menu application. I want to duplicate the start -- all programs section of Windows.

so, when the user clicks on the start button of my program, and goes to All Programs - there is a list of all the program folders, sub folders, and programs - EXACTLY as they see through Windows, for thier specific user.

I began using the menu item, and making the all programs selection open a form with a list box. The list box is populated with IO.DirectoryInfo and IO.FileInfo - but looks terrible, and I really want this to look good + I want to begin with the current user, instead of the "Documents and Settings\" path so they can choose thier user.

Any kind of direction or help would be greatly appreciated. This is a personal project that I've been wanting to do for a while, but my lack of time and knowledge keeps holding me back.

I'm using vb .net 2003. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

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Start recursing folders and files from current user's Start Menu

Dim StartMenu As String
StartMenu = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.Programs

I don't have VB2003 so I didn't check if it works with that.

wow, that would be a great! It didn't work for me, but does it need an extra declaration or inherits line to work?

Thanks again for the reply.

Did you get an error from StartMenu = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.Programs ? Like I said, I don't use VB2003. So it seems to be a feature in the VB2005 which I use.

I have done it also with VB6 code based on SHGetSpecialFolderLocation: Retrieve Windows Shell Folders . I think the code could be used with System.Runtime.InteropServices. If you're not familiar with API programming you could ask someone to convert it to VB2003. And I'm not also sure how you call unmanaged code with VB2003.

It's telling me that MY is not declared - but, I just downloaded the 2008 express version, and will try tonight and let you know.

That did it, thanks! I spent so much money on 2003 studio, I've been reluctant to trying the newer versions. Guess it's just part of it.

Thanks 100x!!

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