{"id":331,"date":"2010-09-17T09:10:15","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T09:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timbrison.wordpress.com\/?p=331"},"modified":"2014-02-01T10:04:53","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T10:04:53","slug":"windows-7-desktop-auto-deletes-shortcuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/09\/windows-7-desktop-auto-deletes-shortcuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 7 Desktop Auto Deletes Shortcuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"screenshot.194\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Microsoft. Windows 7 has a built-in maintenance task that automatically <\/strong><\/em>deletes broken links from your desktop.<\/p>\n

Can you believe it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

I thought I was hallucinating, when last month some desktop shortcuts\u00a0 just disappeared. I had lots of work, so had to crack on and left the ‘investigation’, until I had more time. Before that time came, however, some more shortcuts just vanished…leaving me completly…..gobsmacked.<\/p>\n

Further investigation revealed that Windows 7 was performing this little gem for me – automatically and without warning, under the guise of “System Maintenance”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So without further ado, off to Microsoft I went, to find the solution:<\/p>\n

Method 1<\/h3>\n

\/\/ Keep the number of broken shortcuts on your desktop to four or less.You have to be kidding?<\/span><\/p>\n

Method 2<\/h3>\n

\/\/ If you must have more than four broken shortcuts on your desktop, you can disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter.<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong> If you disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, all the maintenance tasks that it performs are disabled. Therefore, we recommend that you use Method 1. Yes, but what are these tasks?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>o disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Click Start<\/strong>, and then click Control Panel<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  2. Under System and Security<\/strong>, click Find and fix problems<\/strong>. Oh no you don’t – it does not exist.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. On the left navigation pane, click Change settings<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  4. Set Computer Maintenance<\/strong> to Off<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Yep. That’s right – Microsoft’s own help is completely incorrect – there is no ‘System and Security’ option in Windows 7 Control Panel.<\/p>\n

    The real <\/strong><\/em>fix is to go to Control Panel>All Control Panel Items>Troubleshooting>Change settings and then switch off Computer Maintenance.<\/p>\n

    However, Computer Maintenance does check for ‘hard disk errors’ – exactly how or what is not clear, so you might want to leave this switched ‘on’.<\/p>\n

    Me? I have will be switching it off, as I use other methods for disk checking and maintenance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Just makes you wonder sometimes, what Microsoft designers are thinking about? Not only is ‘shortcut deletion’ highly undesirable – but you can’t just switch it <\/strong><\/em>off – you have to switch off the whole <\/strong><\/em>system maintenance widget….which then turns off something really useful, like disk health checks.<\/p>\n

    Bizzare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Microsoft. Windows 7 has a built-in maintenance task that automatically deletes broken links from your desktop. Can you believe it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[66,87],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-tech","category-windows-7","tag-windows","tag-windows-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":911,"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uktech.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}