Comments on: Which Files Does the Windows 7 System Maintenance Tool Delete?

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:32:28 +0000

Take a look here for a better solution.

http://www.ghacks.net/2010/03/30/fix-windows-7-desktop-shortcuts-disappearing/

Hope it is ok to post the link here. If not please remove the comment.

By: Daniel Martín [MVP]

Daniel Martín [MVP] — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:27:46 +0000

Yes, I can confirm that shortcuts to shell folders (like the Games folder) are considered broken links because WMI fills with “null” the Target property of that kind of shortcuts.

I see that the tool also deletes desktop icons that haven’t been used in the past 3 months, even if they are pointing to valid files (shortcuts to folders are not deleted).

I think MS should revisit this tool and, at least, store unused/broken shortcuts in a different folder, like the Desktop Cleanup Wizard did in previous versions of Windows.

By: Ramesh Srinivasan

Ramesh Srinivasan — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:58:24 +0000

And, the tool erroneously deletes any Game shortcuts (from Games Explorer folder) that’re on the Desktop. Perhaps they’re some sort of special .lnk files?

By: Ramesh Srinivasan

Ramesh Srinivasan — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:57:23 +0000

Hi Daniel, I checked the broken shortcuts .PS1 script but could not find the reason why the tool deletes “valid” shortcuts (for some users). I’m keeping an eye on this problem in various forums.

By: Daniel Martín [MVP]

Daniel Martín [MVP] — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:39:22 +0000

Hi, Ramesh!

Interesting article! As far as I know, we can see what the Windows 7 troubleshooters do by inspecting the PowerShell script files (*ps1) that implement them in %windir%\diagnostics\scheduled\Maintenance.

Regards,