Desktop shortcuts to items on network drives sometimes disappear from desktop

According to the task scheduler, it sounds like Diagnosis does more than just clean up the desktop. The Description reads, "The Windows Scheduled Maintenance Task performs periodic maintenance of the computer system by fixing problems automatically or reporting them through the Action Center."

Is there a way to turn off just the desktop clean up and not the disable this item?

I've been having the same issue since my company installed Win7. It happens about every week so the solution above makes sense that it's auto-scheduled in tasks. The only icons that disappear are the ones linked to a NAS drive also. All other shortcuts remain. It drives me crazy. I finally made a copy of them and store them in a folder on the NAS so when they disappear, I just copy them back over.

I'm going to try the above instructions on disabling the task scheduler, just hoping it wasn't doing anything useful.

Thanks ya'll!

Laurie

The task scheduler does do useful things.  And it led me on a merry chase around the internet to figure out a better way to correct the issue.  There are quite a few workarounds, and Microsoft even has a "fix", but the automate fix doesn't work for me.

I have found 4 or 5 with varying degrees of complexity with grabbing ownership of files, moving, editing, etc. etc.  The easiest is Microsoft's published one (only took them 3 years, but they eventually got around to it).

Here is the windows page with the "fix":

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2642357

However, the automated FixIts don't work on any of my systems, so the manual method is required:

Let me fix it myself

 To disable the "Broken Shortcut" task, follow these steps:

1.Click Start, type regedit in the Search programs and files box, and then press ENTER.

 If you are prompted for an administrator password, type the password. If you are prompted for confirmation, provide confirmation.

2.Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ScheduledDiagnostics\

3.On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

4.Type IsBrokenShortcutsTSEnabled, and then press ENTER.

5.Right-click IsBrokenShortcutsTSEnabled, and then click Modify.

6.In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.

7.Exit Registry Editor.

Let me fix it myself

 To disable the "Unused Desktop Icon" task, follow these steps:

1.Click Start, type regedit in the Search programs and files box, and then press ENTER.

 If you are prompted for an administrator password, type the password. If you are prompted for confirmation, provide confirmation.

2.Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ScheduledDiagnostics\

3.On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

4.Type IsUnusedDesktopIconsTSEnabled, and then press ENTER.

5.Right-click IsUnusedDesktopIconsTSEnabled, and then click Modify.

6.In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.

7.Exit Registry Editor.

If you have to do this repeatedly (as in multiple installs, which I do), you might want to just make a registry key bit that you can just run to import into the registry.

If I recall, you can just export the two keys into a whatever.reg file.

Or you can just set it up in notepad and name it whatever.reg

It will look like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ScheduledDiagnostics]

"IsBrokenShortcutsTSEnabled"=dword:00000000

"IsUnusedDesktopIconsTSEnabled"=dword:00000000

That's it.

I've been having the same issue since my company installed Win7. It happens about every week so the solution above makes sense that it's auto-scheduled in tasks. The only icons that disappear are the ones linked to a NAS drive also. All other shortcuts remain. It drives me crazy. I finally made a copy of them and store them in a folder on the NAS so when they disappear, I just copy them back over.

I'm going to try the above instructions on disabling the task scheduler, just hoping it wasn't doing anything useful.

Thanks ya'll!

Laurie