Here we go with PATHS - again!!

I hope someone can put this to rest for good, cause this is just bullshit. Every time I try to do something using any thing other than the root directory of my website - I get these stupid path problems. Here is the problem this time. First off I am not using frames (if it matters) and this particular site is on Windows 2000. The website resides in d:\Apache\htdocs\supreme and in this directory I have a .js file for my drop-down menu - there is also another file which I am including using the php include directive called menu.inc. The graphics for the menu are in a directory called images. When I go to the main page of the site everything is great, but as soon as I try to get the menu to work from another directory it can't find the graphics. I have tried d:\Apache\htdocs\supreme\image.gif. I have tried http://www.mysite.com/images/image.gif. I have tried ../file.js (this is to load the menu) I have even tried putting menu.inc in my php include directory. You get the picture - but no matter what I try it just doesn't work. I mean really - is this that hard to figure out. Like this is every time I work on a site I get these path problems. Am I just not getting something here. Other than putting everything in the root directory (which I don't want to do) I have no idea how to solve this. It just gives me a headache. TIA