Desktop shortcuts to items on network drives sometimes disappear from desktop

Anonymous

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

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Anonymous

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

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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91 additional answers

Anonymous

2009-10-09T19:46:20+00:00

Any other ideas? Icons have stayed for more than 24 hours so far, so am expected them to do a runner again any time soon.

Andre
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Anonymous

2009-10-08T06:05:48+00:00

No, nothing like that. Not even a wallpaper manager, just using standard Windows7 desktop theme backgrounds.

All other shorcuts to folders & programs on the physical drives are fine, I have 20+ icons on the desktop and it's ONLY the shortcuts to the NAS items which vanish at random intervals. (Sometimes Win7 forgets a screen-position of a newly moved icon after the next reboot, moving it back up to the top/left of the desktop, but a quick logoff/login cures that)

Andre
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Anonymous

2009-10-07T16:49:51+00:00

You arent using any 3rd party desktop management software (e.g. Desktop Authority) that refreshes on a schedule and removes things it did not put on the desktop are you?

Does this happen with all shortcuts or just the network facing ones? If you put a shortcut to Notepad on your desktop, does that disappear as well?

Derek Schauland, MCSE | Microsoft MVP - File System Storage | Technology Addict
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