Windows 7: Pinned start menu shortcuts removed/not showing. (win 7)

Please see the picture. (folder names are deleted by me)

OK, yesterday there were those 3 shortcuts in top, 3 directories, and 'notepad, calculator, ms paint', I use all of those everyday, so it's not mistaken.

And today I suddenly discovered that calculator and ms paint shortcuts are gone.

So I checked the directory, and- (as you can see in the picture)
1.calculator shortcut is still there, but hidden in the start menu.
2.ms paint shortcut is removed.

So I googled for information and did what I could, I ran unhide.exe, anti-virus(avast), and anti-malware(malwarebyte), and I think my pc is clean, no virus or malware deteced. and calculator shortcut is still not showing.

I'm afraid if it's a sign of some remote manipulation from some trojan or someone.



How can I solve this?

Hello Juj, and welcome to Seven Forums.

The area in your Start Menu shortcut looks like "recent items" instead of "pinned programs". "Pinned programs" would be above another line above your "recent items".

If able to, what happens when you "Pin to Start Menu" these programs? Are they pinned to the Start Menu afterwards?

Start Menu - Pin or Unpin a Program to

Hello, thank you for replying.

I don't use recent items function so they are pinned programs.

The names of those applications' are in Korean but I think it's not too hard to understand.

I pinned to start menu calculator and ms paint again.(see the attachment, picture is not edited except folder names part)

And I found out:
-Old calculator shortcut is still now shown. And when I right-clicked, 'Pin to Start Menu' function was available. It didn't show unpin. It's like the system cannot detect the old shortcut while it's still in the directory.
-The new one and the old one have the same name but I don't think it's a concern as it's shown in cmd that they don't really have the same name. It's just display issue for translating I believe. Renamed old shortcut still not showing.
-I tried moving them to other folder and restoring back to the original folder. the old one is still not shown.

It comes to mind that my old hdd could be causing this, not windows bug or virus, but I can't be sure.

Are you pinning them directly from the source .exe file or folder? Pinning shortcuts could be problematic if they get moved or renamed.