The two locations where this becomes apparent the most are the computer desktop and the Windows start menu. Especially the start menu becomes crowded after some time of usage.

Bad Shortcut Killer is a program like the previously reviewed Broken Shortcut Fixer. The program can verify all shortcuts that are stored on the desktop and the start menu.

All that it takes is to click on the Find Bad Shortcuts link after program installation. The program will check all shortcuts in those two locations and display the broken ones in the program interface.

Each shortcut is listed with its status (invalid) and the full path of the shortcut on the local computer system. The program is missing an option to open the containing folder for manual validation, but that’s the only missing feature of the program.

Options are available to check individual or all broken shortcuts. A click on the delete selected shortcuts button will remove them from the system.

Some users may find programs to delete broken shortcuts from the computer redundant. This can be the case if they run software like the popular temporary file cleaner CCleaner which comes with the same functionality. CCleaner can remove broken shortcuts both from the Windows start menu and the desktop.

The thing is though that the default configuration does not include the verification of broken shortcuts on the PC. CCleaner users need to locate the System group in the program interface and enable Start Menu Shortcuts and Desktop Shortcuts Manually.

Windows users who like to give Bad Shortcut Killer a try can download the program from the official program website. The application is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Shortcuts are not dynamic which means that once they are created they are not reacting on changes to the application they link to. It can happen that shortcuts stay behind on the system after application uninstallations. Those shortcuts are generally referred to as broken shortcuts.

A broken shortcut leads to nothing since the linked application is no longer on the system or at another location if it has been moved.

Programs like Broken Shortcut Fixer, or Advanced SystemCare Pro can scan a system for broken shortcuts to either repair or delete them. Repair in this regard would require that the linked program is still on the system.

Broken Shortcut Fixer scans the computer system for dead shortcuts. It tries to repair broken shortcuts automatically and displays only those in the program window that it cannot repair automatically.

The user has then the option to delete selected shortcuts from the system. It is of course also possible to manually repair shortcuts, for instance if the application did not find the new location of a file on the system.

The software program ignores remote shortcuts by default. This option should only be enabled if the remote devices are connected to the PC. Broken Shortcut Fixer scans the c: drive by default, and gives users the option to change the scanned drive by using the drive pulldown menu.

Broken Shortcut Fixer is a portable program for Windows to find, repair and delete broken shortcuts. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft operating system. Downloads are provided directly at the developer homepage.

It will first remove desktop shortcuts that have not been used for at least three months. System Maintenance will also remove broken shortcuts on the desktop if there are more than four of them. The problem with the latter is that Windows 7 will recognize shortcuts to disconnected network locations as broken and also shortcuts that link to shell folders.

Microsoft offers two solutions to the problem. The first advice is to keep the number of broken shortcuts below four. This is not always possible due to the problems with broken shortcuts mentioned above.

The second suggestion by Microsoft is to turn off Computer Maintenance:

• Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
• Under System and Security, click Find and fix problems.
• On the left navigation pane, click Change settings.
• Set Computer Maintenance to Off.

This does however turn off all other computer maintenance related tasks like checking the system time, disk volume errors or the disk space error reports.

All the maintenance tasks are powered by scripts that are located in c:\windows\Diagnostics\Scheduled\Maintenance\. Options are to edit the scripts directly in that directory. The permissions prohibit that the files are edited by the current user.

Fixing Windows 7 Desktop Shortcuts Disappearing

Please note: This is a hack which might have consequences on other parts of the operating system. Everything worked fine afterwards on the test system but make sure to backup the files properly before editing them

First we need to take control of the files so that we can edit them. To do that you need to take ownership first and then modify the access rights of the current user so that the files can be modified.

The first part can be automated. Just download the script at this forum and execute it. This should add a Take Ownership entry to the right-click menu in Windows Explorer.

Go to C:\Windows\diagnostics\scheduled\Maintenance in Windows Explorer after installing the script and right-click the file TS_BrokenShortcuts.ps1. Select the Take Ownership option which should transfer ownership to the logged in user.

The user still does not have permissions to save the file which means that we have to complete the next step as well before we can edit the broken shortcuts Powerscript file so that it will not delete broken shortcuts automatically.

Open an elevated command line prompt. You do that by clicking on the Start orb, All Programs, then Accessories. Right-click the Command Prompt link and select to Run As Administrator.

Now issue the following command to grant the active user full rights of the file. Make sure you replace USERNAME with the name of the active user.

icacls c:\windows\diagnostics\scheduled\maintenance\TS_BrokenShortcuts.ps1 /grant USERNAME:F

Now you can edit the file normally in a text editor like Notepad. Open it and locate the line (line 11)

[string]$list = ""

Delete everything below that is below that line up to (line 22)

return $list

The lines that are deleted are:

Get-ChildItem -Path $path -filter *.lnk | Foreach-Object {
$fullPath = ConvertTo-WQLPath $_.FullName
$wmiLinkFile = Get-WmiObject -query "SELECT Name,Target,AccessMask FROM Win32_ShortcutFile WHERE Name = '$fullPath'"

if(-not(Test-ValidLink $wmiLinkFile) -and (Test-Delete $wmiLinkFile))
{
$list = AttachTo-List $list $wmiLinkFile.Name
}
}

This basically returns a blank list to the script so that no shortcuts get deleted. I have tested it with five broken shortcuts and they have not been deleted after running system maintenance.

That fixed the broken shortcuts but we still have the issue that shortcuts that have not been used for some time are deleted by Windows 7 as well.

We have to (almost) perform the same operation here. Locate the file TS_UnusedDesktopIcons.ps1 in the same directory. Take ownership of it and grant the active user access rights.

Edit the file afterwards and locate the line (24)

[string]$list = ""

Delete everything up to line (35)

return $list

so that the following lines get deleted

Get-ChildItem -Path $path -filter *.lnk | Foreach-Object {
$fullPath = ConvertTo-WQLPath $_.FullName
$wmiLinkFile = Get-WmiObject -query "SELECT Name,Target,AccessMask FROM Win32_ShortcutFile WHERE Name = '$fullPath'"
$lastAccessTime = Get-LastAccessTime $_.FullName

if((Test-ValidLink $wmiLinkFile) -and (Test-Delete $wmiLinkFile) -and (Test-FileShortcut $wmiLinkFile) -and (Test-Unused $lastAccessTime $threshold))
{
$list = AttachTo-List $list $wmiLinkFile.Name
}
}

Please note that I did not test the second script but it should work just as fine.

This should resolve all issues that users have with removed shortcuts on the Windows 7 desktop.

Make sure you backup the files properly before you edit them. Please let me know if this worked for you or if you have a better idea on how to fix the deleted shortcut problem in Windows 7.

The broken links checker will automatically scan the Windows Start Menu for broken shortcuts. Each shortcut found to not working anymore will be displayed in its interface giving the user the option to delete them from the start menu.

Some or all of the broken shortcuts can be selected in the overview. A click on the finish button will delete all selected links from the Windows Start Menu. The software program will only delete the shortcuts and not the folders that they reside in.

It should be noted that popular system cleaners such as CCleaner are also capable of deleting broken shortcuts from the start menu. An easy way to delete empty folders in the Windows Start Menu is to use a program like Remove Empty Directories and point it to the path on the computer system that stores the start menu entries (Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\).