bug or function? desktop shorts issue..again!

hi all...
yes i'm new here, but have been reading all over the internet regarding the issue i'm about to post. (including several topics here in this forum). nothing seems to fit exactly, and the possible suggested fixes just don't hit me as something i'm either willing or competent enough to try.

Problem:
i left for work one morning, and all was fine on my brand spanking new Dell PC. (like a week old lol). 12 hours later, my desktop had holes where shortcut icons used to be. poof...vanished...gone.

in one thread, (and forgive me if i don't recall sn's of the posters, but i've read so dang much it's all pretty much mooshed together by now), it was mentioned that this is a normal function of Win7, system maintenance. that if there are more than four broken shortcuts, a system tool vaguely related to old desktop cleanup wizard just automatically removes them. ok... i can find and kill that....maybe.
problem is...none of the shortcuts were broken.

they all were shortcuts to different things too. so the possible solution of "reinstall the program" doesn't fit. i rarely allow installations to drop shortcuts to my desktop, but sometimes find later that it would be faster and handy to have one, so i go set one. (going to program files, setting "send to" from the app's .exe) .
nothing seems, in my case, to fit across the board.

one short was directly to My Documents (only one ID/user account set for this machine).
one shortcut was to a simple .txt file in my documents folder.
one shortcut was to an executable for an app i decided i wanted fast access to.
one shortcut was directly to a folder IN my documents, a folder containing many subfolders of things i use frequently.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm <scratchin head here>

now, please keep in mind that i'm like a kindergartner here with some college level knowledge...i am largely self taught and i know some things well...but may be missing a lot of basic info that is in between so when and if you post response.. ya might have to "dumb it down" for me i'll do my best to assist in my own help, but ya might have to tell me where to look for the proper info..

the only occurance i can think of that may have affected this is... last night late i allowed download and installation of an update to adobe reader 9. after it installed and did it's thing...it dropped a desktop icon (which, like another thread here also says "who wants that")... so i deleted the shortcut. i've read where this can affect the icon cache.. rebuilding it has had no positive effect.

someone suggested in another thread to also hit the system tools task scheduler, and disable the scheduled System Maintenance Troubleshooter.
that doesn't sound like something i want to do tho, as the only dang function of it that i can see that's causing me issues is, it's attacking and killing perfectly good, innocent shortcuts on my desktop. i have gone in and taken a peek around it tho, hoping to find some option to 'notify before deleting icons" or something equally handy...no such luck. <sigh>

many other options have been suggested in the places i've read info....
system restore (which i'd rather not resort to being as this machine is less than two weeks old)
format and reinstall of OS seems a bit like killing a flea with a shotgun..(umm...pretty much same reason)
reinstall the program.. (what about the .txt file short and others like it...)
there's no malware or freaky files on this machine (hijack this and malwarebytes and spybot all clean as a whistle)

so i come....throwing myself on your collective brains... while muttering softly to myself...
"good lord "Uncle Bill"... can ya please fix this!!"

not that specific thread Lemur.. but did now download the bat file for future ease, (tyvm too brink)

i have manually rebuilt icon cache tho prior to posting, following instructions from a win7 forum , with no positive result.
thing is.. while that may kinda "fix" a particular instance if it works.. kinda makes me wonder what the deal is that's either causing it, or why it's so, well don't want to say "unstable" cuz this is the first issue i've had, but just seems that deleting a flippin shortcut icon shouldn't result in several others vanishing, if you know what i mean?

Beforer getting too deep into the propblem, have you tried recreating the shortcuts? If so, did they fail or..? If it works, then forget about investigating the whys and wherefores.