I was pinning some shortcuts to the task bar and removing these shortcuts from the desktop. Somehow I ended up with duplicate shortcuts and icons for each one that was originally on the computer desktop (even those I was not moving). These duplicates are not useable - they cannot be right clicked; they do not highlight when hovered over.
I have numerous desktop icons (shortcuts, recycle bin, my documents folder) that I cannot delete. These icons are duplicates of the normal active icons that are either on my desktop or in the taskbar. The "unusable" icons aren't even recognized as being icons (so that if I right click on the desktop and select view and uncheck "show desktop icons", these icons remain). The icons cannot be selected (either right or left clicked), they cannot be moved, they do not highlight when moused over. Any suggestions on how to remove these? I've tried refreshing the desktop, rebooting several times, etc. They do not show up in the desktop folder within c:\users\<your user name>\desktop folder or the public desktop folder either.
I recently bought a second user machine from a colleague of mine. He re-installed Windows 7 so that everything was fresh and set up a new profile for me but I wasn't happy with the name of the profile that he had set up. Anyway to cut a long story short I created a new profile, copied the old files across and deleted the old profile I wasn't happy with.Everything is working fine and as it should be but I have a now have a couple of annoyances with a number of the programs that I have pinned to the taskbar and the start menu. For example when I pinned Firefox and Thunderbird to the taskbar it has named them as Firefox (2) and Thunderbird (2) as if they are duplicate programs/shortcuts. The same is true with some of the programs that I have pinned to the start menu. For example when I pinned CCleaner to the start menu Windows named it as CCleaner (2) even though it wasn't present in the first place. If I try to rename it to CCleaner (as it should appear) Windows tells me that there is already a program by that name pinned there and it asks me if I would like to rename it CCleaner (3).As far as I can tell it doesn't affect the performance of such programmes, its just really really frustrating. Would it have anything to do with the files that I copied across from my old profile?
I have split my user profile onto a larger mirrored drive using a junction link. This works perfectly. However when viewing my personal folders I see multiple identical icons for favourites, links, my music etc. When I navigate to the actual area everything appears as it should be.If I try to delete one of these identical icons then both icons go to the recycle bin along with the files inside the relevant folder.Please see screen shot. I could recreate my profile and point the new profile at the relevant folders but setting up all my applications again will be a bit of a nightmare that I would like to avoid if possible.
Basically, I've recently made the long-overdue transition from a 5-years old Windows XP machine to a brand-new Windows 7 one, which I've now had for a few days. Only yesterday, what appears to be a small bug reared it's ugly head.
Any file or folder created or moved onto my Desktop is automatically duplicated with another instance of that item. I say an instance because it's not simply a copy of that file, strictly-speaking, because when the duplicate is clicked, it opens the original file. So, I'm left with two instances of the same file on my Desktop. Just to make this clearer, suppose that, as an example, I created/moved a Plain Text file onto my Desktop. A duplicate of that item would then appear. When clicked, this duplicate opens the very same file, meaning therefore, that I have two instances of the same file. In case you were wondering, the duplicate is also not a shortcut to the original file: bringing up its properties, it has the exact same properties as the originally-created one does. I hope everyone's following me so far.
As well as the strange behaviour mentioned above, the bug also affects deleting files or folders in the Desktop. As I've already said, two instances of the file are created when a file is created on the Desktop. In the same way, deleting one instance of the file also deletes the other - but not straight away. It registers as deleted, but the Desktop has to be refreshed for the other instance to disappear.
I've just bought a new PC which has Windows 7 installed so just finding my way about! My old PC was running XP and all my program shortcuts in the Quick Launch Toolbar had relevant icons on them. However, although some shortcuts I've put on my 7 QLT have appeared with the relevant icons, for instance FF and TB, 3 other programmes have just come up as blank cream coloured folders. So is there a way to get the proper icons instead of the blanks?
all my icons on desktop and computer have turned to notepad icons... and they open with some text on notepad... looking for a solution to go back to normal settings...
Some of the icons normally showing what a program type is are missing now. I HAVE all the DESKTOP icons and those in the system tray. But in Windows Explorer lists or in Word Perfect and Word lists of file names, many of the small icons that normally appear next to a program's name, or showing what type of document or file it is, are now missing. Not all, just some. I have mostly open square boxes. It doesn't matter whether I'm looking at a list of files I've created, or looking at the items in various system folders: most are just empty open squares instead of the individual icons. I have Windows 7 64-bit OS , both Mozilla 17 and IE9 browsers.
I have over 300 shortcuts I would like to display on my desktop. No room. I tried to figure out how I can page groups of 60 at a time. Tried Sondle Virtual Desktop Assist Software but that just switches between same desktop but session only open/close of availiable programs.
Using Windows 7 Pro (32 bit) Everything going on well then all pf a sudden, I lose all my short-cuts on my desktop.
I know they are still there as I can see them in the Desktop folder in my branch of Users (I am the only user!)
If I try to put another short-cut on everything goes ahead quite normally until I complete - and then the screen is still blank of short-cuts, but the new short-cut is in my Desktop folder as it should be It's just as though they are hidden.
Is there any known reason and fix, when Windows 7 Enterprise desktop shortcut key stops to work?Win+D doesn't, while Win+E works.When hiding other applications and revealing desktop, application shortcut keys don't work from desktop but start from task bar icons.
Running Windows 7 home premium with all updates on an i5 PC built in Dec 2011.Yesterday, out of 50 shortcut ions on my desktop, 6 of them disappeared! The missing shortcuts were to:- Control panel- Disk management- A shared network folder- To 3 programsI looked in C:UsersUserNameDesktop and in C:UsersPublicPublic desktop but the missing shortcuts are missing from those folders also.
I played some UT3, made some screenshots w/ Fraps to the desktop, downloaded a vid to the desktop, and when i was finished, there where some empty spots in my icon rows on the desktop. I thought that something shuffled the icons around, but then discovered that about 4-6 shortcuts where missing. There where simply gone, i did a search for them.After some investigation (including examining my desktop backup) i found that all the missing shortcuts have a broken link (the destination doesn't exist at the moment).So, what is this strange behavior? Shortcuts that no longer work are deleted automatically without warning the user?
My girlfriends laptop keeps getting strange shortcuts on the desktop that we/she did not want or put there.. They are just plain folder looking shortcuts and have odd names like ")." or "))/.."or ".))" ...I cant remember the names exactly but they are similar to that. We delete them and they come back in a few days. I've run the virus scans and malwarebytes scans and found nothing...
Some programs automatically create shortcuts on the desktop without asking you, is there a way to completely disable creating shortcuts on the desktop? I don't want to just hide the icons on the desktop, I don't want any program to be able to create shortcuts on my desktop.
I have about twenty shortcuts on my desktop. Up until last week they all took me to where I wanted to go. As of yesterday they don't work. I click on a shortcut and nothing happens. The only thing different is that I placed the "Show the desktop" on my taskbar. The icons here do work. What paralyzed my regular desktop icons and how do I unparalyze them?
I'm having a weird issue. i'm not sure where or why but these symbols on my shortcuts are changing to things like a lock, a grey X, a green Check mark, or two people next to each other there are a couple of Pics attached. they seem to only appear intermittently.
I just noticed that shortcuts to two docs; one Word doc and one Excel sheet have disappeared from the desktop. They are still on the hard drive. I have the shortcuts as I use them every day.
I definitely did not delete the shortcuts. And I am the only person who uses this PC. I wondered if I got a virus, as I recently visited a reputable forum but its main page has been hacked. (The hackers stated so!)
I did a MalwareBytes Quick scan and it did not detect anything, but half way through its scan Windows said there was a threat and to click "Clean Threat" or whatever - and it got rid of it, but I could not find a way of finding out what the threat was.
how to find that the Windows threat was? And what could have caused the files to disappear?
I have a number of shortcuts to often used folders and drives on the work LAN set up on my desktop. Infuriatingly, these regularly disappear (I have not timed it accurately, but it seems to be after approx. 1 week)! I keep copies in another directory, so can replace them fairly easily, but it's really frustrating that nobody seems to be able to explain what is going on
I have two minor issues with 7. First, I placed several shortcut incons from the Admin folder on my desktop for convenience --ie. Device Mgr, Disk Mgmt, Event Viewer, My Computer, etc. Every time I boot up, only these admin icons disappear. None others are affected.
Secondly, whenever I dbl-click a .VOB file from a DVD folder, the Windows Media Player pops up the size of a 4" square. However, before in Vista it always appeared the size I left it when I logged off last; Vista remembered its size.. Even after re-sizing it, upon launch it starts out small in 7. Why doesn't 7 remember the size? What to do?
Using W7 home premium SP1. Everything is up to date, not running any virtual desktop, just a few widget type apps on my second display.
Sometimes when I do a restart or cold boot, some of my shortcuts have changed locations on the screen and I have to move them back to where I want them. I've never experienced this before until recently and I am looking for assistance on what is causing this.
My desktop shortcuts and keyboard don't work anymore on my Dell. We had a virus but removed it, very once in a while it would work for a minute but it doesn't work at all anymore! We can't do much without typing. We tried installing otherkeyboards,wireless and USB, but same problem, they don't work. The Desktop shortcuts would work if you right click and hit open but now it won't right click. So I have to find the program in all programs and open it
On my last computer I had found a way of putting website shortcuts right onto my desktop. It was really convenient because I could keep all my casual "play" bookmarks in the browser itself, and important sites for things like banking and online bills were accessed from a special corner of my desktop. I've since built a new computer and I don't remember how I did it before. My primary browser is Chrome and I can't find a way to save bookmarks to the desktop. What I've been forced to do is right click on the desktop, go in "New" and then select "Shortcut", and then just put the website's URL. It works but the icon pictures are all wrong. On my last comp each website had a proper icon (Bank of Montreal had the BMO logo, Videotron had the Videotron logo, etc).