Windows 10: Multiple shortcuts and files randomly appear on desktops

I am experiencing a random issue in my environment where a user will login and their desktop will get populated with shortcuts and files that do not belong to them. Usually they are shortcuts that are pointing to folders in other departments which they would have no rights to. If I delete the files and have the user reboot, they are usually fine after that. This has occurred a number of times across our environment with no explanation. We have scoured our login script and found nothing that would be causing it. We are currently using Windows 10 but have seen it happen in the past on Wind

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Desktop Shortcut Icons

Hi Mik-Dav,

The desktop shortcut created for a specific website should bear the website's actual logo. With what you've experienced, there could be something wrong with how the shortcut was created.

If you've created the shortcut by selecting Create shortcut, then we suggest that you try the other way, that is by dragging the website icon that appears in the address bar to your desktop. Follow these steps:

• Using Internet Explorer, access a website.
• Once the website opens, you will see its icon in the address bar.
• Click and drag the icon on your desktop.

The website shortcut bearing its actual logo should now be saved on your desktop.

Let us know if you need further help.

Regards.

 

Desktop Shortcut Icons

I tried using Edge that comes with the computer and I can see the logo you are talking about. When I try to drag it to the desktop you can see that I have it but as soon as I drop it the window opens rather than putting the shortcut icon on the desktop.

 

False positive for desktop shortcut scanner.lnk

The 1.239.488.0 virus / spyware definition update that rolled out about 24 hours ago appears to be producing a false positive for any shortcut placed on the desktop called "Scanner.lnk". I can consistently replicate a false positive for Trojan:Win32/FakeSysdef
with the following steps.

• Create a shortcut to an exe file.
• Place the shortcut on the desktop.
• Name the shortcut "Scanner".
• Run "Quick Scan".

I don't get the same result by directly scanning the file, nor by uploading the file to www.virustotal.com, so it would appear this is as a result of a heuristic rather than a file content analysis. I also don't get the same result with a shortcut that links
to a website.

Can anyone else replicate? How can we go about getting the Windows Defender team to reconsider this heuristic? It's a bit heavy-handed.