Duplicate Start Menu shortcuts: deleting ONE deletes ALL instances

  • Thread starter Charles Blaquière
  • Start date
C

Charles Blaquière

After a few years, my Start menu's All Programs list contains a truckload of
programs. I thought I'd organize things by creating a few new, task-oriented
folders, like "Web design (shortcuts)". I went to Explorer, added a new
folder under "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs", and
proceeded to Alt-drag a few folders from elsewhere in the Start Menu
hierarchy.

So far, so good. But instead of dragging individual items from my
well-organized "Start Menu\Utilities" folder, I Alt-dragged the entire
folder, figuring I could then examine the newly-created duplicated
shortcuts, and delete the ones I didn't want in the new "Web design
(shortcuts)" folder.

That's where trouble started.

Let's say I have a folder #1:

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start
Menu\Programs\Utilities\File\WinMerge"

containing shortcuts to the WinMerge utility. (WinMerge, USer's Guide, Read
Me, etc.) I now also have the same shortcuts in folder #2:

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Web design
(shortcuts)\Utilities\File\WinMerge".

If I delete the WinMerge folder under #2, the WinMerge folder under #1 gets
deleted! I'm now left with unwanted shortcuts that I can't delete, lest the
original shortcuts get deleted too. Apart from deleting both copies and
manually recreating the shortcuts in folder #1, is there another way, one
that will preserve the shortcuts in folder #1?

Thanks for your help.
 
W

Wesley Vogel

See this...
Duplicate Icons in the Desktop - Windows 2000/XP
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/duplicatedesktop.htm

Look at Start Menu in ...
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Value Data should be: %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu

Look at Common Start Menu in ...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Value Data should be: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu

Also see this...
Reset the Shell Folders paths to defaults
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/usershellfolders.htm

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 

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