Shortcut problems Windows 10

[mcooper]

The Shortcuts do not show up in the Windows 10 Apps menu. It seems to be OK up to and including windows 8.1

[Ulrich]

What exactly are the shortcuts which aren't set up?

Ulrich

[mcooper]

Under all other versions of Windows they appear in the Start Menu

then:

Grasp Software Corporation\Women in safe housing 3

I think it might be a Windows issue though because when I browse the folders they are there in the right place, just not picked up in the menu????

[Ulrich]

What I meant was what kind of objects do these shortcuts point to. Shortcuts shouldn't be created for help files (CHM, PDF, etc.), internet shortcuts, uninstallers, etc. Shortcuts to these kind of objects may no longer be created. Only applications should show in the Start screen / Start menu / All Apps screen.

You may have a look at this thread for further information.

Ulrich

[mcooper]

Hi Ulrich.

The shortcut points to an EXE file.
The issue might be some sort of limit on shortcuts inside of a Program group with Windows 10. I haven't had time to experiment with this, but because all of the software programs we write go in the Program Group Grasp Software Corporation, some of our internal test machines have more than 10 shortcuts inside that Program Group. Windows 10 might display the first 10 (for example), because I can see all of the shortcuts when I browse to the folder but they do not appear on the Windows Start Menu there (which they should).

The mystery got stranger though because I decided to delete some of the shortcuts when in the folder view but my Windows menu offerings stayed the same.... whereas they should have changed... so it does seem that Windows 10 does something different with the menu displayed from its Start Button menu.

Mike

[mcooper]

Hi Ulrich

There is definitely something wrong. The shortcuts (upon further inspection) don't appear. They also are not getting added to the Desktop or the Quick Launch area.

All of the icons that I see were migrated from Windows 8.1, but now I notice that no new shortcuts are being created. I successfully installed other programs (from other suppliers successfully, but this is a problem specifically with installs created with Setup Factory version 9.5.0.0.

Have you tried a new install for the first time on a Windows 10?

Mike

[mcooper]

Just tried it on another Windows 10 computer that didn't have many program shortcuts and here is what I have found:

The Desktop shortcut DOES get created

but the Program Shortcut does not appear anywhere in the Windows Start>All Applications menu.

If I browse under c:\ProgramData, I find all of the application shortcuts but none of them show up in the Windows 10 Start>All Applications menu. It is like Windows 10 looks somewhere else for the shortcuts for this menu.

I tested that theory by deleting a shortcut that was on the menu (from before) and it still shows on the menu.

The only things that show in my Windows Start>All Applications menu are shortcuts that were there before I upgraded to Windows 10 and anything that was installed by an installation program other than a Setup Factory installation.

What can you add or suggest to this?

[mcooper]

I found this information on the internet... Perhaps it is part of the problem:

Windows 10’s Start menu works differently under the hood. It’s actually managed by a system service that scans the above folders for changes and displays an All Apps list based on them. In practice, it works similarly.

Ars Technica found that the initial release version of Windows 10 could only handle 500 entries in this shortcut database before it breaks and stops showing new shortcuts, so don’t add too many! Microsoft will hopefully fix this low limit in a future update to Windows 10.

[mcooper]

After a whole bunch of research, it is a bug in Windows 10. First of all they have a limit of the number of menu items but also the shortcuts are passed through some sort of "index" and there are many reports of this being corrupted.