Windows says icons are on the Desktop that aren't there!

Starkman · 25 Apr 2016

So, I installed a game, deleted it, removed all remnants of it (including on the Desktop), and yet, after reinstalling it—when making a shortcut of it and putting it on the Desktop—Windows says that the shortcut for it is already there, which, it isn't. I mean, what's up with that?

I tried running a .bat program from How-To Geek (or something like that) to clean up and rebuild the icon cache, but that didn't help. Any ideas what's going on?

Thanks,

Starkman

davidhk · 25 Apr 2016

Wonder if this will work....................

Start button > All apps > scroll to that program in question > right click at it > click More > click Open file location > right click at the program > click Send to > click Desktop (create shortcut ).
Will the shortcut appear on your desktop ?

Starkman · 25 Apr 2016

Oh, the shortcut will show up when I create a shortcut, but it renames itself to a (2). It's even doing this with a folder I created off my C drive and made a shortcut to the Desktop; it thinks there's already shortcuts for this there. Weird!

davidhk · 25 Apr 2016

Yes. I have the same issue.
My Tenforums shortcut also said ..........................Windows 10 Forums (2), although that is the only one I have.
I just let it slide.

Starkman · 25 Apr 2016

Yeah, I suppose I will have to do the same. You'd think rebuilding the cache would have fixed it. Oh well.

AndreyT · 25 Apr 2016

Starkman said:

Oh, the shortcut will show up when I create a shortcut, but it renames itself to a (2). It's even doing this with a folder I created off my C drive and made a shortcut to the Desktop; it thinks there's already shortcuts for this there. Weird!

So, did you try to look at your Desktop folder (i.e. ...\Users\<YourUsername>\Desktop) with display of hidden files enabled? Maybe these files are indeed there already, just hidden?

You can easily reproduce exactly the same behavior by hiding an existing shortcut and then trying to create another one with the same name.

Starkman · 26 Apr 2016

Well, I went to \Users\... and I don't see any extra shortcuts, but how do you hide a shortcut itself? That's a new on for me!

CountMike · 26 Apr 2016

Just deleting program/game is not going to remove everything, specially Registry entries (which may be case here). Uninstalling it with a good uninstaller program like Revo for instance, cleans up all remnants and should prevent things like that from happening.

AndreyT · 26 Apr 2016

Starkman said:

Well, I went to \Users\... and I don't see any extra shortcuts,

Well, what program did you use for that? If you used File Explorer, then as I said above you have to enable display of hidden files in File Explorer in order to see hidden shortcuts. Did you enable it?

Starkman said:

but how do you hide a shortcut itself? That's a new on for me!

Each shortcut is just a file with .lnk extension (and Windows meticulously hides that extension). Other than that, there's nothing special about that file. You can set its "hidden" attribute as with any other file.

Choose any shortcut on your desktop, open its Properties, go to General tab and select Hidden checkbox. This will hide your shortcut from Desktop. If you attempt to create another shortcut with the same name, Windows will automatically add "(2)" to its name, since the original hidden shortcut now "holds" the original name.

Starkman · 26 Apr 2016

AndreyT said:

. . . as I said above you have to enable display of hidden files in File Explorer in order to see hidden shortcuts. Did you enable it?

Yeah, sure did. Nothing extra showed up.

AndreyT said:

Each shortcut is just a file with .lnk extension (and Windows meticulously hides that extension). Other than that, there's nothing special about that file. You can set its "hidden" attribute as with any other file.

How about unhiding them! How do you do that if you can't see them, particularly when File Explorer won't show them? (I have File Explorer set to show all files as well as show hidden files both off the View menu and on off the ribbon.)