Explorer bar "Downloads" link under favourites does not work

[kenco8801]

Hi
One of our users on Windows 7 64-bit came to us recently with an issue trying to load their desktop from the "Desktop" link in the explorer bar under favourites. The link loaded and empty folder and the search bar started to progress across the top (green bar). It didn't load. Upon browsing to c:\users\username\desktop they could view their desktop icons fine. Weird.

This has now happened to me today but with the "Downloads" link. I created a new shortcut on my desktop to test and that worked fine. It started working again after a short while but has stopped all together. If I do the same, browse to c:\users\myusername\downloads it doens't work either! (but it did earlier) so now I can't get into my downloads folder at all through explorer. If I use CMD I can see the contents of this folder are still there.

As I'm writing this, I've just tried to go back to c:\users\myusername\downloads and it did load eventually.

This is a really random issue - anyone else experienced the same?

 

[Brink]

Hello Ken, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm not sure if this is the same issue, but you might see if using the tutorial below may help with this. It will not hurt anything since it only restores the default values for this as it should be.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/78879-favorites-empty-navigation-pane-fix.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[kenco8801]

Hi Shawn,
Thanks, I'll give that a go now, I did get an error saying "Cannot import.... not all data was successfully written to the registry, some keys are open by the system or other processes" Would you expect this error?
I'm leaving the office shortly but will update this thread tomorrow if it has resolved the issue.
If it has, any ideas on a fix for the desktop shortcut?

 

[Brink]

You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do this, so that may be a reason for the error if you were not.

This would be for both issues since they both deal with Favorites in Windows Explorer.

 

[kenco8801]

Hi Brink,
Well, first impressions were that it had not made any difference. It still took a while to load on some attempts and then didn't load at all on others.
I noticed that I had over 3GB of files in this directory so tried deleting a lot of them (there were a handle of large files 500MB+).

Now the directory size is only about 70MB and it loads instantly so maybe the size was part of the issue.

I'll give the reg fix a try with the other user and also see what size their desktop folder is.

Thanks for your help with this, will keep you posted.

 

[boohbah]

im not sure size would be the issue as i have some very large folders in my favs (music,movies) , and they load immediately, also these are just shortcuts so there isnt really any size involved.

 

[Brink]

Ok Ken. I hope you get the other one sorted as well.