Some desktop shortcuts disappeared - why?

[Skyzoomer]

Running Win7 home premium with all updates on an i5 PC built in Dec 2011.
Yesterday, out of 50 shortcut ions on my desktop, 6 of them disappeared! The missing shortcuts were to:

- Control panel
- Disk management
- A shared network folder
- To 3 programs

I looked in C:\Users\UserName\Desktop and in C:\Users\Public\Public desktop but the missing shortcuts are missing from those folders also.

Why is Win7 deleting some of my desktop shortcuts?
Sky

 

[Brink]

Hello Sky,

It may be the "System Maintenance Troubleshooter" that removed them. You could use the tutorial below to turn it off to see if that may help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/165701-system-maintenance-troubleshooter-turn-off.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Skyzoomer]

Hello Sky,

It may be the "System Maintenance Troubleshooter" that removed them. You could use the tutorial below to turn it off to see if that may help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/165701-system-maintenance-troubleshooter-turn-off.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Ok, I turned Computer Maintenance "Off".

Should I leave the remaining two options checked?
(x)Allow users to browse for troubleshooters available from the Windows Online Troubleshooting service.
(x)Allow troubleshooting to begin immediately when satarted.

Thanks for your ever present help Shawn (Brink),
Sky

 

[Brink]

Yeah, those two options do not matter when "System Maintenance Troubleshooter" is turned off.

Did your missing shortcuts on the desktop return after turning off "System Maintenance Troubleshooter"?

If not, then leave it turned off, and manually create new shortcuts for them on your desktop. Afterwards, see if they disappear again like this in the future.

 

[Skyzoomer]

Yeah, those two options do not matter when "System Maintenance Troubleshooter" is turned off.

Did your missing shortcuts on the desktop return after turning off "System Maintenance Troubleshooter"?

If not, then leave it turned off, and manually create new shortcuts for them on your desktop. Afterwards, see if they disappear again like this in the future.

No, the missing shortcuts did not return. They are not in the "desktop" folders so Win7 must have deleted them automatically thinking it's smarter than me. I hate software that think it knows better than the user and does thing automatically without the user's permission. ........ No, make that "I hate programmers that program code that does that".

I'll create new shortcuts and post again if they disappear with the system maintenance troubleshooter turned off.

Thanks,
Sky

 

[Skyzoomer]

Nine shortcut icons on my Win7 desktop disappeared again yesterday.

I double checked the system maintenance troubleshooter and it is still "Off".
=====
Windows will check for routine maintenance issues and remind you when the system maintenance troubleshooter can help fix problems.
( ) On
(x) Off
=====

Any other ideas?

 

[Brink]

Well, so much for it being the system maintenance troubleshooter. What were these shortcuts to?

Do the files that the shortcuts point to still run if you manually run them instead?

Are you running any type of 3rd party maintenance software that may be removing them?

 

[Skyzoomer]

Well, so much for it being the system maintenance troubleshooter. What were these shortcuts to?

Do the files that the shortcuts point to still run if you manually run them instead?

I'll have to figure out which shortcuts were deleted. I should have taken a picture with my camera when all of the shortcuts were displayed. Now even the blank spaces where the shortcuts were are gone since I had enabled clone displays to watch some video on our TV set and when I switched back to monitor, the monitor's screen resolution somehow changed to 1024x768 and I had to change it back to native resolution of 1640 x 1080. All of the icons were rearranged during that senario.

Are you running any type of 3rd party maintenance software that may be removing them?

No 3rd party maintenance software running at all in foreground or background. The only things I remember doing prior to the shortcut icons disappearing were:
- browsing forums using Firefox.
- doing email using Thunderbird.
- running Visual C++ via Visual Studio 10.
- reading some data on a couple of excel spreadsheets.
- composing and reading data using MS word.

I'll take a picture of my desktop icons and see which ones are missing when they disappear again. Meanwhile, if I need to run something, I'll discover that the desktop shortcut is missing.

Googling, I see that others have had Win7 desktop shortcuts disappear also so this problem is not unique to me. I'm running a legal copy of Win7 home premium with all "important" updates.

Thanks,
Sky

 

[Brink]

In addition, make note if the shortcuts for that program disappear from any other location than the desktop as well.

 

[Skyzoomer]

In addition, make note if the shortcuts for that program disappear from any other location than the desktop as well.

Brink,

Just in case it makes a difference and so you know, I move all of the shortcuts that are placed in the "C:\Users\Public\Desktop" folder into the "C:\Users\UserName\Desktop" folder so they are all sorted correctly. I've done this with XP and Vista and never had any shortcuts disappear from the desktop. I don't see how it could cause shortcuts on Win7's desktop to disappear but just giving you all of the info in case it helps you figure my problem out.

I don't have shortcuts in any other location that I know of. If there are other places I should be looking, please let me know.

Thanks,
Sky

 

[UsernameIssues]

...........I don't have shortcuts in any location that I know of. If there are other places I should be looking, please let me know.

Thanks,
Sky

The Start Menu should be filled with shortcuts.

 

[UsernameIssues]

.......when I switched back to monitor, the monitor's screen resolution somehow changed to 1024x768 and I had to change it back to native resolution of 1640 x 1080. All of the icons were rearranged during that senario......

I deal with this quite often - so I use a tiny tool names Desktop Restore.

Edit:
You can also save the location of the shortcuts to a text file using that tiny tool. This gives you a list of all of the shortcuts (and their locations). Or you can use your camera like you mentioned. I would probably use the Prnt Scrn button and MS Paint... but if a camera is more to your liking then....

 

[ChrisKlein]

Just recently I had a similar issue with shortcuts and icons dissapearing as well.
Even though my problem was more extense than yours I have the strong feeling that your problem, same as mine, is related to an error related to the thumbnails creation and usage in Win7. Surfing the net reveals quite a significant number of people who all faced and still facing similar problems.
You can read what happen to me here
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...apear-some-sort-random-basis.html#post1914079

Iam convinced now that the only way solving this sort of problem is a Repair Install or even better a new installation of Win7 which I just have done yesterday and which turned out to be a lot less painful than it was in the past as Win7 performs automatic backup of data on the very same HD and in about 20 minutes all was solved . Just throw your Win7 disc in and Win7 will guide you. Its really a no-brainer and normally you dont even have to bother with serial and reactivation of Win7 as when you reinstall the same OS with same serial and license and the PC is plugged into the Internet it seems to activate automaticly, at least that happend to me yesterday.
It took a while to download and install all Updates via Automatic Update though.
Only little downside is that you have to reinstall all programms but as a side effect you have a clean install with slim registry and everything working smoothly.