Windows 10: lnk files on the desktop no longer open. Windows 11

At some point all lnk files stopped opening. Maybe this happened after installing winrar, but I'm not sure about that. Looked through a bunch of threads on this forum, nothing helped...

:)

 

Windows 10 WMDC .lnk files

Hi Jom,

We suggest performing the steps provided above for us to troubleshoot your issue with copying .lnk files to any devices.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

OneDrive syncing desktop files, turned them into .lnk files that no longer work

I have a client whom we set up OneDrive for on his old computer. We set it so his desktop files would sync to OneDrive. We then replaced his old computer with a new one. All of his old files appeared on his new desktop as expected.

It wasn't until 3 months later it was discovered that these "files" are not actually files, they are shortcut .lnk links. Weirdly, the shortcut address is the file on the desktop itself, which is where the file is/was supposed to be. But these shortcuts
cannot be opened, and say that the address they are pointing to is invalid.

The files are .lnk shortcuts both on his physical computer and in OneDrive.

What the heck happened? Is there anything we can do to fix these files, or are the original files gone forever?

 

Windows 10 WMDC .lnk files

• Just to confirm, are you having issues copying shortcuts (.lnk files) to any devices?
  Yes
• Have you made any changes prior to the issue? No, Except what is described in this trade
• Are you receiving any error messages? It seems like there is some messages there are suppressed, there is appearing some sounds, like error sounds but no message displayed.
• Is the issue the same when copying a different file? nope, only on the .lnk files
• What are the steps that you've done so far to troubleshoot the issue?
  What is described in my previous comments
  
  When it was working before the specified Windows 10 updates, it would sometimes prompt if want to do or accept something ... But unfortunately I can't remember what is was, i think it was something about if you want to do is for this files types
  and again if you want to do it for all the following files as well.