Randomly the Windows Explorer jumplist will disappear in Windows 7

Anonymous
2009-09-30T05:14:52+00:00

I've been reading about and i havent found an answer: my windows explorer jumplist just disappear. It only shows the options "Windows Explorer, Unpin from taskbar, close all windows" but frequently and pinned locations are gone.

I havent installed ccleaner or tuneup or anything like that. I also havent change the any setting; the jumplist just disappear one day to another. However, other jumplists works fine (eg windows media player, google chrome, even control panel works fine).

Any idea?

I also tried to unpin windows explorer from taskbar and I noticed that in the start menu the list doesnt shows too.

I hope someone can help me, im not the only one who have the same problem and until now, there´s not solution.

Thanks! Sorry for me english im from Argentina.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-03-26T20:41:33+00:00

Just delete the files in the folder:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

R estart your PC, and begin (again) to use Explorer for save recent places.

You can see my "step by step" in my blog:

http://bromerot.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E6F8F80C074BDD47!950.entry


A programer is a digital artist.

Just had this problem and this fixed it for me. I wanted to add a few notes in case it is useful to others having this issue... (Sorry, I can't tell if your blog entry addresses any of this as it is not in english...)

Getting to this folder can be a little tricky. Pasting "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations" into the run box, which would normally work, won't in this case. Neither will pasting it into the target of a shortcut. Additionally, you won't find it if you try to normally browse to it as the "Recent" folder shows up as "Recent Items" and displays the special Recent Items folder in Explorer if you browse to it, rather than the true contents of "Recent". So you must get there by typing the full path (without the %appdata% variable) into an Explorer address bar or a run box. If you don't know the full path of %appdata% you can get there in 2 steps by typing %appdata% into an explorer address bar, then once you get there, adding " \Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations" to the end of the address shown in the address bar.

I didn't find it necessary to reboot. The changes were immediate. I only tested the ability to pin things to the jumplist. It's possible the recent files requires a reboot but I'm not convinced that that is necessary

It is possible to fix just Explorer (or any application) that does not have a working jumplist without losing any changes you made to jumplists of other applications. Here's how I did it:

Rather than delete the files in this folder, MOVE them to a temporary folder somewhere else. All the jumplists of all the applications will now be empty. Now pin something to the jumplist of the application you want to fix (in my case Windows Explorer). 1 new file should appear in the folder. You now know the name of the file controlling the jumplist of that application. DELETE this file from the temporary folder where you had moved everything. Now move the remaining files back to their original location. This restores the jumplists of all the other applications so you will only have to rebuild the one.

If you make regular backups of your system drive, you can also restore the files from this directory from a backup made before you lost the jumplist, in which case you won't have to necessarily reconstruct the list. In fact, if you use the above procedure to determine which file needs to be fixed, you should be able to restore just that one file. I have a Windows Home Server that does daily backups, so I restored the 1 file from yesterdays backup and everything is now working again as it was.

Incidentally, on my computer the file for Windows Explorer is "1b4dd67f29cb1962.automaticDestinations-ms". Not sure if this is the same on all systems, though...

Was this answer helpful?

3 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2009-10-02T11:20:35+00:00

I would try unchecking both options, and Apply, then restart Windows and recheck, and apply.

If no help, you can create a new user account and copy your settings. Crreate two new admin accounts, log on to one, and copy the old to the other new account. (Control Panel/User Accounts/"Manage another account"


Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP

Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments

54 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2014-03-12T12:46:41+00:00

    Thanks for answering the real question. I haven't tried W8 and probably won't for a while. My company very wisely waits for some time before upgrading to any new Windows OS. Oh well, it's not a huge pain, just an inconvenience that I can (have to) live with.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2014-03-12T09:09:06+00:00

    Basically i think that the only fix for this is to upgrade to windows 8 (YUCK!).

    why does this happen? Because microsoft are inept and have no testing process. The actual testing process is to ship the product, wait for us to report the bugs, let us report the bugs on the forums, the forum admins do their absolute best to help us but without any actual support from MS or the programmers they are left high and dry trying to fix something which is an actual bug so they are fighting fires with buckets full of holes.

    The programmers never actual find out about the bugs unless it is a catastrophic bug. Something such as pin lists.......not even worth tech support getting out of bed for.

    Have you tried windows 8? :D

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2014-03-11T22:25:36+00:00

    Did you ever get any real answers as to how to avoid this list from being deleted every so often. I would think that most people already know how to recreate the list, but I would rather know why it disappears in the first place. I don't to just show all recent either. I have a list of directories that include most of my work and I like to see them in the same order every time to make selection easy . I am tired of having to recreate this every few months. What is the reason the jumplist is erased and is there a way to keep it from being erased.  I don't want to resubmit this question since it seems to be here quite a few times, but I don't think you ever got an answer to your actual question, which I would like as well.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments