Friends
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on a Dell GX620 tower, lots of RAM and disk.
this subject has come up from time to time but it seems the 'stock' MS answer is that your shortcuts were busted anyway and so Win 7 maintenance routine buried the bodies.
This is not the case with the system I am working. Desktop shortcuts in this case were to good/working applications that have not relocated... and to a few web sites. So far as I know the path info is as good as ever. But for whatever reason, on the User account [not the Administrator account which in this case is enabled/invoked] not only are the desktop links disallowed from showing, but all efforts to create good shortcuts are defeated without any error message or flags. They simply don't happen.
What's the solution?