IE Favorites no longer work

[Ben]

Hi Group,

I inadvertantly moved (instead of copying) my favorites folder (The Star
Shaped Folder) from it's normal location which is the "C/Documents and
settings/{My Name}" folder onto the desktop, I realised my mistake when I
found that I was unable to add to, edit or access my favorites within
Internet Explorer. I moved the favorites icon back where I got it from but
found that the favorites still do not work, that is to say that when I click
Add to Favorites or Organize Favorites nothing happens, sorta like clicking
on air. I Can click on the favorites folder it's self and it will open, all
my favorites are still within the favorites folder, Ramesh (Microsoft MVP)
offered a solution by moving the favorites folder from my desktop into the
%Userprofile% folder but it didnt work, by the way, Thank you for your
suggestion Ramesh, any other suggestions would be appriciated, anything is
better than re-installing windows and all this software and trying to locate
all my serial numbers again.

Thanks for listening to me whine about a self generated problem everyone.

Ben

 

[Jon Kennedy]

Use Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) to correct the Favorites entry under the
following registry keys. Change the Favorites entries to point to the
correct location of the Windows\Favorites folder.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Shell
folders

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\User
Shell folders

HKEY_USERS\.default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Explorer\Shell folders

HKEY_USERS\.default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\User
Shell folders

If no joy, in IE use File...Import/Export to export your favorites to a
file, delete the Favorites folder that may be damaged, then reboot to
recreate that folder then import your Favorites back into the new folder.

More info: http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers3.htm#favorites

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Ben,

It has to be a Move operation (not Copy). CTRL+X and then CTRL+V in the
destination folder should have updated the user shell folder registry paths.
If not, you need to edit the registry, per Jon's advice.