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
    2012-04-30T13:18:48+00:00

    This scheduled diagnostics task does more than just a desktop icon check.  It also checks for inaccurate system time, volume errors, and a few more things.  None of these are critical, but you are affecting more than just the fix you want.

    Look back a few pages, I posted on how to modify the broken link count so that you are only disabling the automatic and broken "broken link" cleanup. 

    Either way, it's annoying that MS would be heavy-handed with desktop cleanup.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-06-03T17:35:32+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.

    Thank you,

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-06-11T14:41:42+00:00

    Yep this is common when using Windows 7 on a domain based network with links to network shares. Spikes in the network cause the OS to think that the destination no longer exists -  so windows then 'cleans' the supposedly dead short cuts.

    Here is the work around and fix that I used myself:

    Windows 7 Shortcuts disappear

    I Hope this helps.

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