When Windows 7 was released Microsoft included a series of PowerShell scripts that were executed via that Maintenance option. Two of these scripts were:
- Ts_brokenshortcuts.ps1
- Ts_unuseddesktopicons.ps1
They were located along with several other scripts at
C:\Windows\diagnostics\scheduled\Maintenance
The latter script ran once a quarter, and if Desktop icons / shortcuts were present that had not been used in the last 3 months, Windows would automatically remove them.
The Former script: Ts_brokenshortcuts.ps1 would run weekly and look for Shortcuts that pointed to incorrect locations. The default settings in this script was if 4 or more faulty shortcuts existed they would be removed. A side affect of this script however, for some Users, was that it caused other Desktop icons to randomly disappear too.
The solution if this was the case was to modify the Windows Registry by adding a
REG_DWORD (32-bit) value named
IsUnusedDesktopIconsTSEnabled and giving it a
Data value of
0.
This value was added to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ScheduledDiagnostics
So far as I am aware neither of these scripts are present by default in Windows 10, but it may be possible that a third party cleaning tool is making use of these scripts, so if the Thread Starter is using such tools they probably ought to check whether these scripts are bundled into their application.
