It appears that although I am using Vista Home Premium, I originally reset my stat menu to Classic View (so that it looks something like the Start menu in earlier versions of Windows.
So, when you click on the Start button on the bottom left of the screen, do you see anything that says "Help and Support" (or similar)?
If you click on this it should take you to a screen which contains, among other things, "Windows Basics".
Click on this and under Desktop Fundamentals you'll see "The Start menu (overview)".
Click on this and scroll right down to the bottom of the screen and under the heading "See Also" you'll see "Change the Start menu to Classic view".
If you click on this, my earlier reply should finally make sense!
Don't worry, you can always change back to your preferred view. It's just that I prefer "Classic View" because it was that that I was weaned on!