Today i arrived into work to a very … different sight.
I was missing my taskbar icons. Having seen explorer crash in the past in XP and Vista whereby it decides to take the quick launch away i figured that this was the same. Well i was wrong.
You see 1 icon there, thats the Problem Steps Recorder at work
Further investigation revealed that i could pin and unpin new items at will. But the oldies would not reappear. Some well placed r-click’s lead me to “C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar”. This handy little place is the physical store for what we “pin” to the taskbar. So it was very surprising when i found that my icons were still there!
A quick jump to Microsoft support online and they had never heard of this issue before. So i record the problem i am having using the beautiful “Problem Steps Recorder”. For those that don’t know this is the greatest gift from Microsoft in Windows 7 for anyone who troubleshoots issues for remote desktop users. If you haven’t used it simply give it a try and you will see why this tool is excellent for troubleshooting your computer illiterate grandparents “errors” and to even make how to guides on navigation or setting changes.
My psr file was 13MB unzipped (in .mht format) due to the number of screenshots it took when i made it and the dual screen high res setup that i am using. (2x 22″ @ 1680×1050). Currently i am liaising with Sherry Jia, Partner Online Technical Community, and as my employer is a Microsoft Gold Partner it seems that i will get the support i need.
So finger crossed that tomorrow shows the results, not that it matters as i have installed Server 2008 R2 with HyperV on my second HDD in work and plan to make a fresh Win7 VM. That will hopefully push me onto Win7 backup and restore and finally HyperV backup and restore.
HyperV · missing taskbar · problem steps recorder · psr · Quick Launch · taskbar · windows 7
jamie · December 7, 2009 at 5:35 pm
i’ve had the exact same problem – and what’s annoying is if i attempt to recreate the shortcut, it shows up with a (2) at the end of the name, so it clearly knows that the old one is there. can’t wait to hear the “solution” if one exists.
Author comment by Conor · December 7, 2009 at 6:59 pm
The Solution she provided was to delete the shortcuts in that folder and create new ones. While this “resolves” the issue it is by no means a solution to the problem. I ended up moving the shortcuts out to the parent folder and then selecting them all and r-click -> Pin to Taskbar. Then i deleted the shortcuts i just moved.
The microsoft website and Sherry named above were rather unhelpful in trying to fix this clear “bug” in windows, one which is extermely irritating.