Desktop icons, shortcuts don't work

Desktop icons and shortcuts work for a while after booting up but freeze up after a short time and don't work.. Restarting usually fixes the problem for a short while, but then they freeze up again.

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Answer

Ajay K replied on

Hi Muniman2,

Do you recall making any changes to the computer prior to this issue?

The Issue could be caused by some third party softwares or security software present on the computer, I would suggest you to try the following steps to narrow down the issue:

Step 1: Disable the security software; follow the steps mentioned in the link below

Disable-antivirus-software

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Disable-antivirus-software

Important: Enable the security software back once everything is done.

You may temporarily disconnect the computer from the internet during this test.

Step 2: Put the computer in clean boot and test

Follow Step 1 in the link below,

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

If everything works fine after a clean boot, you can infer that some third party services are causing the problem.

Proceed with the remaining steps to pin-point out the third party service.

After you figure out the problem causing program, you may have to update or install a higher version of the program, if you seldom use that software you can consider uninstalling it.

Important: - Remember to put the computer back to normal startup follow step 7 in the link.

Thanks and Regards:

Ajay K

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

All Replies (2)

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dferron replied on

I am having the same issue, but the difficulty with the answer is that you leave your system vulnerable for maybe hours of surfing. There are days that there is no issue. It appears that the time this occurs on my system is after the computer goes into power saving mode, but not all the time. It also occurs on resume, but not all the time. All of the tray icons work fine as do those in the All Programs menu. A reboot always fixes the issue.

EeePC Newtbook, Windows 7 Premium.

Additional: I have been watching more closely when the icons quit working. It only occurs, for me, from a hibernation wake-up. A wake-up from short naps doesn't cause the disappearance.

Workaround:

Was able to find what is causing the problem. If IE8 is open when the system goes into power-down of some kind there is a second process that shows in TaskManager when it wakes up. Do the old Ctl-Alt-Del and close one of tne IE processes and the desktop icons return to normal usage. Have verified this several times in a row now = without a reboot.

More late breaking news ...

Twice now with no IE8 open pages the icons would not work after a wake-up. I went directly to TaskManager and there were two iexplore.exe processes still running. One was about 148,000k and the other was 9,000k. I closed the big one and the desktop icons worked and the smaller process closed itself. The problem seems to be that IE8 does not close in a tidy manner.

Looks like MS should be providing fix.

Problem Solved :)

Not sure why, but the problem has been solved. No way for me to pinpoint the reason for the fix. It could have been the result of a recent Win7 update, or ... I have not installed any new software. I really wish that there could have been a concrete solution, but in my case that didn't happen.