Vista start menu shortcuts sometimes don't work - why??

[OliverK]

I have a problem with Vista that's driving me crazy.

I'm using the default start menu (not the classic layout).

Just about all my program run perfectly when I select them from the start menu, BUT there's the odd one or two (in particular Adobe Acrobat 8) and Perfectdisk that simply do nothing when I select them.

It's weird. A week ago they both worked perfectly. I have no idea what I did in the meantime to cause their shortcuts to stop functioning.

It's even weirder because when I do a search for the programs (using the Vista start menu search feature) and select the icons from the search results, they load perfectly! And then once their icons appear again on the start menu, if I select them again nothing happens!

This happened a few weeks ago with another program (can't remember what it was now) but I ignored it and after a while the start menu shortcut just seemed to work again.

What's going on here?? I've noticed on other forums that others are also having the mysterious "dud shortcut" problem with the Vista start menu.

Anyone know what's causing it and whether there's a fix??

(incidentally, if I use the Classic Start Menu, all the programs run perfectly from their shortcuts on that menu!! Go figure.)

Thanks in advance for any thoughts people might have.

[bigc73542]

Try deleting the shortcuts off of the desktop that don't work and creating new ones. I had one program do it after an update from windows and after creating a new short cut it has been working fine in Vista Home Premium.

[OliverK]

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean. I have no shortcuts on the desktop - I keep it completely empty.
As I said, I've deleted the shortcuts in the start menu and then run the programs from the search feature (or, now that I think of it, from the "all programs" list in the Start Menu), which causes a new shortcut to appear in the start menu. But that new shortcut still doesn't start the program.

[bigc73542]

Sorry can't help you then as I do run short cuts on the desktop to speed up launching programs.

[midway40]

It seems like you are using the "list recently opened programs" function in the start menu to open these programs. I have never used this instead I "pin" my most used programs directly into the menu (right click on a program>pin to start menu). I have never had a problem opening programs using this method, even on XP.

To turn the 'recently opened programs' off, right click on the start button and open Properties. Under Privacy, uncheck the "Store and display a list of recently opened programs". The menu will now be empty (except maybe the Internet and Mail icons) and you can pin your fav programs to the menu.

I do not like a whole lot of icons on my desktop either. I just keep a few across the top of the desktop. When a program installs a icon to the desktop, I move it into a folder I made called Programs. I have been doing it this way a long time, even when I was using Linux.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5228/desktopdc6.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=desktopdc6.jpg)

[midway40]

BTW BigC, if you want to get rid of the shortcut arrows in your icons use FxVisor:

FxVisor (http://www.frameworkx.com/Frameworkx/solution.aspx?id=632)

[ThunderZ]

-{ Quote: "BTW BigC, if you want to get rid of the shortcut arrows in your icons use FxVisor:

FxVisor (http://www.frameworkx.com/Frameworkx/solution.aspx?id=632)" }-


Or; REMOVE DESKTOP SHORTCUT ARROWS

Open the registry, go to;

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Piffile and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ lnkfile

Change the text IsShortcut to IsNotShortcut
Reboot the computer