There are many posts on the Internet about Start Menu Programs disappearing. However, none of those cases seemed to be exactly like what I'm experiencing.
This has happened to me many times. I'm not sure what I did: the problem might've occured just after uninstalling some small video...
applicationuninstall
bug
corruption
desktop
disappeared
file management
files
hidden files
lnk files
lost and found
programs
recovery
registry
start menu
system issues
troubleshooting
undelete
user profile
windows 7