My Taskbar shortcuts have disappeared!

[Y0GI]

I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and I use MS Outlook as my default email client. I'm not sure which version of MS Office the Outlook is in but maybe Office 2016(?).
For the past 2 years or so, I have been having problems viewing embedded images in my emails. I have tried all of the options in the Security section of Outlook (I think that's the name) which controls how pictures and images are displayed in Outlook but none helped. Sometimes I can click on the text at the top of the email that says something like "If there is a problem viewing images in this email click here." There are several options available but the one that "seemed" to work the best was simply "Display images in this email," which worked only part of the time. So the next sentence in the top of the email said "View in Browser." Every time that I used this option, the email would reopen in MS Internet Explorer which I didn't like because I prefer Firefox, and IE is a POS. I always opened Firefox from a shortcut on my taskbar and web pages that then contained links would also open in Firefox. As far as I can remember, Links contained within emails also opened in Firefox. The only problem was that "View email in Browser" option at the top of the email, which ALWAYS opened in IE.

So, yesterday afternoon I went into Control Panel and set Firefox as my Default Browser. After that, I had my BitDefender AV do a full system scan, which did not find any problems, and shut the system down for the night.
Today, I started from a cold boot and all of my Taskbar shortcuts (Quicklinks"?) are GONE!
Can anybody tell me what happened?
My last backup was in 2017 so that is not practical. My last "System Restore" point was 2 days ago.
Should I just manually drag and drop the files that I need to the Taskbar (It's been so long that I don't recall the exact procedure for making those Quicklinks or Quick Launch icons),

OR should I do a System Restore,
OR WHAT??

 

[RolandJS]

Don't do anything just yet, let me search for my old info, I might have an EZ solution for you. I will amend this post with updates.
C:\Users\[acct name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar
Your icons might still be in that directory. Create a shortcut to it.
If those icons are still there, create a PinToTaskbarFromHere directory in your data partition. Create a shortcut to it. Copy the icons from your user Taskbar into your PinTo... directory & delete from Taskbar.
From within PinTo... directory, pin each icon onto the Taskbar. Leave icons there.
From now on, when you add Taskbar pins, you can copy those from Taskbar into your PinTo...
And, if you remove X icon from Taskbar, you can delete said X icon from PinTo...
Going forward, this is the way I "backup" the Taskbar stuff.
None of this helps the Notification Area of the Taskbar, that is entirely a different animal.

If by chance you have to start from scratch, there are two ways:
Copy what you want to Pin into your PinTo directory, then Pin from there.
Or, pin away...then afterwards, copy user Taskbar contents into your PinTo directory.

 

[Y0GI]

OK. I appreciate your response very much, RolandJS. Unfortunately, I had ro take some meds which have made me very tired and I will start fresh tomorrow and implement what you have suggested.


Do you have any idea why changing the Default Browser would affect these Quick Launch Shortcuts?


Thank you very much for your help! I really appreciate it, RolandJS!

 

[RolandJS]

Oh, you meant Quick Launch, not the normal pin to taskbar icons? I'm sorry, I miss-read your opening post! My advice may or may not help - Quick Launch does have its own directory. One can create a backup of that directory in one's data partition - I called mine QuickLaunchMaster. Now, whether one can repopulate QL from the data-residing backup directory - I have no idea on how to do so. Please let us know if you succeed in EZ Quick Launch repopulation, post the successful steps, thanks!

 

[Y0GI]

Well, I have been trying all afternoon, without success, to restore my Quick Launch Icons. After 3 hours of trial and error (Including trying System Restore, which didn't work) I finally just re-enabled the QL Toolbar and dragged the Icons that I wanted, down from the Start Menu.



Now I am wondering why System Restore didn't work?! I disable my AV, as suggested, but that didn't help either.

 

[RolandJS]

Going forward, delete old SRPs ones that do not work, make new ones, and continue making routine full images backups of your OS partitions and data partitions onto reliable external usb media -- I prefer 1-2 TBs HDDs myself.