Windows 10: Windows says icons are on the Desktop that aren't there!

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,



:)

 

What photo apps are there that are on the Microsoft Store to share the photos with the public?

You can create an album in the Photos app then you can share it in OneDrive.

 

What photo apps are there that are on the Microsoft Store to share the photos with the public?

I want to beable to upload 1TB or less amount of photos.

 

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 ?

 

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!

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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!

 

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.

 

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?

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.

 

Yeah, sure did. Nothing extra showed up.

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.)

 

If your File Explorer is configured to show hidden files, then you should be able to see all hidden shortcuts on your Desktop. If you don't see them, then the reason for the behavior you observe must be something else (not hidden shortcuts).

 

Don't forget system files. Shortcut shouldn't be marked as system, but who knows. Enable also "show system files" and try again.

 

I had this problem for forever and i was looking at the desktop properties and i unchecked both attributes box's then applied then i could see all my missing shortcuts *Biggrin