disappearing mapped drive shortcuts on desktop

i am having the exact same problem on two different machine one 7 pro and the other is a ultimate :confused:
it's the weirdest thing only shortcuts to the map drives and folders are affected, all the other ones are OK

oh one more twist to this odd ball problem, i have a second profile on each machine with pretty much the same shortcuts and on the second profile the shortcuts are still there on both machines
 

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7 pro
OS
7 pro
I gave up trying to figure it out and just use the network name for the folder instead of the mapped drive. I still occasionally reboot and find my desktop icons turned off for some reason also. I hear SP1 is coming real soon! :p
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

windows 7 x64 7624AMD Phenom II x4 8104gb DDR38600gt
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Homemade
OS
windows 7 x64 7624
CPU
AMD Phenom II x4 810
Motherboard
Gigabyte AM3
Memory
4gb DDR3
Graphics Card(s)
8600gt
Sound Card
on board/realtek
Monitor(s) Displays
24" Dell
Screen Resolution
1280-720
Hard Drives
500gb seagate 7200.11
My boss is having the same issue with shortcuts to mapped drives and folders on mapped drives, on Windows 7 x64 Professional retail version. I'm thinking it has something to do with Control Panel > Troubleshooting > System & Security > Run Maintenance Tasks.

If I create several shortcuts to mapped drives on my desktop, click the Run Maintenance Tasks, uncheck the box to automatically apply fixes, then check the detail, I see that it says those shortcuts have a target executable that no longer exists, despite the shortcuts working perfectly when I click on them.

Perhaps this is the reason the shortcuts are disappearing, because of this "system maintenance" that runs automatically? I'm guessing this is something similar to the "unused desktop icons" in XP?

If I click on Change Settings while in the Troubleshooting window, I can turn off routine computer maintenance. Could this help keep those desktop shortcuts from disappearing? Why does it say the "target executable no longer exists" for those shortcuts when they work perfectly anyway?
 

My Computer My Computer

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Windows 7 Professional x64Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad Core 4.0 GHzG.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32 GB DDR3-1866 (4x ...EVGA (nVIDIA) GTX 960 4 GB GDDR5
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom-built PC workstation
OS
Windows 7 Professional x64
CPU
Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad Core 4.0 GHz
Motherboard
ASUS Z97-E/USB3.1 ATX
Memory
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32 GB DDR3-1866 (4x 8GB)
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA (nVIDIA) GTX 960 4 GB GDDR5
Sound Card
on-board
Monitor(s) Displays
2x Dell Ultrasharp 24" U2415
Screen Resolution
2x 1920x1200
Hard Drives
Crucial MX200 500GB 2.5" SSD SATA III 6 GB/sec
PSU
Rosewill Glacier 700M 700-watt
Case
Fractal Design Define R4 Silent PC mid-tower
Cooling
OEM PSU cooler, 3x 140mm case fans (2 intake, 1 exhaust)
Keyboard
Logitech
Mouse
Logitech
Internet Speed
100+ Mbps
Antivirus
BitDefender
Browser
Firefox/Chrome
Hopefully it'll be fixed in sp1 :p
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

windows 7 x64 7624AMD Phenom II x4 8104gb DDR38600gt
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Homemade
OS
windows 7 x64 7624
CPU
AMD Phenom II x4 810
Motherboard
Gigabyte AM3
Memory
4gb DDR3
Graphics Card(s)
8600gt
Sound Card
on board/realtek
Monitor(s) Displays
24" Dell
Screen Resolution
1280-720
Hard Drives
500gb seagate 7200.11
Well, the network drive shortcuts on my boss's desktop have disappeared again, despite the changes I made, which I listed above. The shortcuts on my desktop have not disappeared, even though I made the same changes to my system.

If this doesn't get fixed I'll never hear the end of it.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 7 Professional x64Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad Core 4.0 GHzG.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32 GB DDR3-1866 (4x ...EVGA (nVIDIA) GTX 960 4 GB GDDR5
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Custom-built PC workstation
OS
Windows 7 Professional x64
CPU
Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad Core 4.0 GHz
Motherboard
ASUS Z97-E/USB3.1 ATX
Memory
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32 GB DDR3-1866 (4x 8GB)
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA (nVIDIA) GTX 960 4 GB GDDR5
Sound Card
on-board
Monitor(s) Displays
2x Dell Ultrasharp 24" U2415
Screen Resolution
2x 1920x1200
Hard Drives
Crucial MX200 500GB 2.5" SSD SATA III 6 GB/sec
PSU
Rosewill Glacier 700M 700-watt
Case
Fractal Design Define R4 Silent PC mid-tower
Cooling
OEM PSU cooler, 3x 140mm case fans (2 intake, 1 exhaust)
Keyboard
Logitech
Mouse
Logitech
Internet Speed
100+ Mbps
Antivirus
BitDefender
Browser
Firefox/Chrome
The removal of shortcuts is caused by a cleanup task in Windows XP that is planned to run on sunday at 1 o'clock AM. This cleanup task scans the shortcuts on the desktop and removes any shortcuts for which it cannot find the destination file.
Because the cleanup task is started using the administrator or the system account, the task does not know the mapped drives, so it cannot find the shortcuts destination and thus flags it for removal.

This task is called "Diagnosis". To disable it:

Open the Start Menu.
Go to Control Panel , System and Security , Administrative Tools (near the bottom) , Task Scheduler , Task Scheduler (Local) (near the upper left) , Task Scheduler Library , Microsoft , Windows , Diagnosis .

In the right pane , Right click on Scheduled , choose 'Disabled'.

I had to figure this out because my boss had the same problem on his Windows 7 desktop and found the answer on the Microsoft Technet groups.
If you use google to search for "Windows 7 deletes links from desktop" you should find that post.

Note that desktop shortcuts that point to the UNC-path location of the file should not have this problem, so you could also change the shortcuts to point to the UNC-path location.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows XP
OS
Windows XP
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