After playing with Windows 7 options and features you might face the annoying issue that all of your shortcuts (or just some of them) have disappeared from your computer desktop. No fear! That’s quite normal. In fact, Windows 7 deletes all those shortcuts which may be corrupted, deleted or broken. The System Maintenance Troubleshooter on its own accordance and following its own schedule, performs a weekly maintenance of the whole operating system to fix errors, things which have gone “wrong” and eventually reports problems through Action Center.
When the System Maintenance Troubleshooter finds out that there are more than 4 shortcuts broken on your desktop, it automatically deletes them. If you do not like this behavior, you can decide to disable and turn on the System Maintenance Troubleshooter. Here is how.
- Click Start.
- Click Control Panel.
- Click System and Security.
- Click Find and fix Problems.
- On the left pane, click Change Settings.
- Now, set System maintenance Troubleshooter Off.
[via: KB978980]
Tags: trick, Windows 7
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7 Comments to “How to Fix Desktop Shortcuts Missing in Windows 7”
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February 6th, 2010
Never knew about this setting. What else is hidden in the hearts of Microsoft? Thanks, as always.
August 16th, 2010
I could not find this path in Windows 7 Pro.
1.Click Start.
2.Click Control Panel.
3.Click System and Security.
4.Click Find and fix Problems.
5.On the left pane, click Change Settings.
6.Now, set System maintenance Troubleshooter Off.
I did find it via this path however:
Start, Control Panel, Troubleshooting, Change Settings, Computer Maintenance set to OFF.
October 14th, 2010
you have to be in category view when you go to control panels
November 11th, 2010
If you disable this it wont check for volume errors or error reports that are taking up space either so beware.
November 16th, 2010
windows 7 enterprise ver. 6.1
i have short cuts which are related only to the use of a VPN, so i guess they would appear broken if the VPN is not connected, is there a way to maintain the system maintenance troubleshooter and keep the short cuts?
November 18th, 2010
Good to know about this… I’ll change my windows behavior to never delete my shortcuts, because I want to do it … hope it works…
January 16th, 2012
Thank you ibramall.
You were on the subject.
Your path worked!
Well DONE!