Startup Programs not starting up and Startup folder has been involuntarily wiped

[tiddles]

Basically, since this morning I noticed that a few of the things that normally startup on startup hadn't. So I go to task manager and see that all except 3 programs (my anti virus and 2 others) were gone, so I go to check the startup folder itself and see that there is nothing there. Just wondering what could have caused this and if there is any way that I can possibly fix it.

 

[popatim]

Did you see any message about default profile when you logged on?
Sometimes your profile corrupts and the system will load a default profile which naturally will be missing your startup items among other things.