Shortcuts located in "D:\Program Data\..." not working even though they're pointing to the right targets (Windows 7)
- by Kevin
I just made a fresh install of my windows 7 home premium using my laptop's recovery disks (HP Pavilion dv6-2151cl) using minimal settings. After install, I set up "Program Data" and "Users" to my D partition to save space changing the folders in the registry. Then I updated windows (including W7 SP1), and installed all other programs.
After installing all other programs I noticed that the icons of all new programs (not included in the windows install) in "All Programs" had a blank sheet as icon and they don't do anything. Looked into "D:\Program Data\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs" in the windows explorer and the same is true there. All the shortcuts in C: and "D:\Users..." work both in the "Windows Explorer" and "All Programs".
Also I noticed that the shortcuts do display the right icons inside the "open" dialog boxes. And if I copy the shortcuts in "D:\Program Data..." to the desktop they also work as expected.
I checked file association for .lnk and it was OK, but also tried the registry fixers for this file association and they had no effect. There are no missing programs that I can tell in the "All Programs" menu, the just don't do anything if they lay in "D:\Program Data...".
Any thoughts on how to make Windows 7 treat shortcuts in "D:\Program Data..." as they should?