Desktop shortcuts to items on network drives sometimes disappear from desktop

Anonymous
2009-10-05T10:31:59+00:00

I have a number of shortcut icons on my Windows 7 (RC1) desktop to networked items - some are folders on a NAS, some are mapped as drives, etc. However, sometimes Windows 7 seems to simply remove all of them without notice and I have to recreate all the shortcuts to my NAS items again.

I wondered at first if this may have been because Windows would sometimes boot before all of my network devices became available, but when that happens it just correctly marks the icons with a red cross to indicate that it couldn't find them at boot time, and as soon as the NAS is available then the shortcuts work fine.

However at random intervals, all seven of these shortcuts simply disappear from the desktop. All other shortcuts and icons are fine, and the mapped drives are still present in my 'Computer' display - it's just the NAS-related shortcuts on the desktop which vanish.

Any idea why this might be happening?

Andre

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2009-11-02T19:48:31+00:00

If you create desktop shortcuts to removable storage places such as NAS the icons will disappear from time to time because Windows 7 has a built in task schedule to clean up broken and unused links. 

To prevent the task from running you need to disable the task in the task schedular: start-programs-accessories-system tools-task scheduler

Expand the tree in the left hand pane until you get to Task Scheduler Library-Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis.

In the right hand pane, right click the task named Scheduled and click Disable.

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Anonymous
2015-04-30T16:17:45+00:00

This feature is extremely annoying.  Whenever I take my work laptop on the road, this has happens and I never knew why until now.  In my case, when the shortcuts to my network folders and applications disappeared, there was no trace left, not in my computer or anywhere.  And trying to figure out how to remap them all was a nightmare!!!  Productivity lost, headaches, etc...  thanks MS!

Fortunately, I found a way to get them back!   Check this out:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_7-desktop/how-to-restore-desktop-shortcuts/0cfe39d3-16c7-49c3-b538-6d5a3f5b6abe/

After doing the copy from previous versions, I was able to find the missing shortcuts and drag them from the 'Desktop Temp' folder to my desktop.  Thank God.

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-02-06T14:40:38+00:00

    Expanding on MiFeo's solution, I had to do a couple additional steps: In file TS_UnusedDesktopIcons.ps1: Function Test-Unused: I commented everything out between the curly brackets and added one line so that it always returns False (return $false). Function Get-UnusedShortcutList: commented everything out and added one line so that it always returns an empty string (return ""). Also, in file TS_BrokenShortcuts.ps1: Function Get-BrokenShortcutList: commented everything out and added one line so that it always returns an empty string (return ""). It seems to have stopped the shortcut removal. Rich

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-01-21T17:37:22+00:00

    Just to add my voice to the rest, I have over 30 workstations running Windows 7 and everyone here uses our fileserver all day long so it's only natural to have desktop shortcuts to the network folders. Whenever I do maintenance on our server which requires taking it offline, every workstation will lose all shortcuts to the server within a matter of minutes. I know it's the same issue everyone else here is having because I can replicate it at will. I've also been following most of these blogs looking for a decent fix for a very long time now.

    Windows 7 has been out plenty long enough for Microsoft to address this issue and we're still left with these BS "workarounds" which are completly unacceptable in any professional environment. Not to mention the complete waste of time/money having to setup all the shortcuts every couple of weeks.

    So much more to say but I'll leave it alone for now. Still looking for the little checkbox to make it all go away!

    Puzzled and dumbfounded

    Brent

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-11-11T06:51:11+00:00

    Hallo Bandolier

    There are two "solutions". See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978980/en-us

    I agree with you that both of this methods aren't satisfactorily.

    So here is my workaround:

    1. Navigate to "%SystemRoot%\diagnostics\scheduled\Maintenance".
    2. Take ownership of the file "TS_UnusedDesktopIcons.ps1" (else you will not have the permission to modify the file)
    3. Comment out (with a #) the line 32 ($list = AttachTo-List $list $wmiLinkFile.Name)
    4. Save...

    I hope this works for you.

    Kind regards

    MiFeo

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