IE11 Favorites displayed in the Menu Bar in Windows 10 displayed incorrectly - need help.

[DavidDubya]

Favorites became inaccessible from the Menu Bar during the process of Organizing Favorites. My IE Favorites were on OneDrive long before upgrading to Windows. I have used IE11 in Windows 10 for 2 weeks. Since using Organize Favorites in one sub-folder the IE Favorites I see in the Favorites menu are no longer what is on OneDrive.

Clicking on Favorites in the Menu Bar I see only the one folder I Organized, with one sub-folder, and the sub-folder is empty. Clicking on Organize Favorites, I see all of the Favorites I expect to see, with the one folder I had previously Organized at the top of the list, sorted out of alphabetic sequence. If I look at Favorites on OneDrive they look normal. If I look at this Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Favorites

the data in that key points to the OneDrive Favorites folder as expected. The IE11 Favorites Bar is visible and active even though the Favorites menu is hosed.

One more piece of weirdness - clicking on the star icon in the upper right corner (View Favorites, feed and history) results in the correct display of Favorites. So Favorites accessed by the star icon and by Organize Favorites (under Favorites in the Menu Bar) are displayed correctly, but clicking on Favorites in the Menu Bar results in a useless display.

I turned IE11 off in Control Panel, Programs and Features, Turn Windows features on or off. After a required restart I turned IE11 back on. No help - Favorites displayed in the Menu Bar are incorrect. Hmmm.

How can I reset Favorites in the Menu Bar to show the contents of the Favorites folder on OneDrive?

 

[Trouble]

Can you take a look at C:\Users\YourUserName\Favorites?
What shows up there?

 

[DavidDubya]

IE Favorites were redirected to OneDrive long before I installed W10. The folder you mentioned does not exist on my W10 PC. The Favorites folder on OneDrive looks normal, with my Favorites intact.

 

[Trouble]

Yes and I understand all of that. The entire contents of my user profile folder is on another physical drive so I am not confused by common or even uncommon folder redirection.
Just trying to help.
Every computer that I work on or own has a favorites folder in their user profile folder for the specific current user.
Just suggesting that perhaps that the contents of favorites in its' normal default location, or the lack there of, might just accidentally be a clue to your issue.

 

[DavidDubya]

Trouble - Thanks for your post and reply. I understand you are trying to help. The Favorites folder does not exist in C:\Users\myusername on either of two PCs I have running W10. There is a Favorites folder in user Default, and the folder is empty. Still looking for a way to solve this mystery. Frankly, I'm tempted to revert to W8.1 and start the installation over.

 

[Trouble]

Frankly, I'm tempted to revert to W8.1 and start the installation over.

If that is the only problem you are having with your install, I hardly think it would be worth the effort, especially to find out that the same problem may very well persist through a second install.

Maybe consider creating a "Favorites" folder in your user profile folder and populate it with the contents of your OneDrive "favorites" folder and see if that does anything with how the favorites link on the menu bar in IE 11 behaves.

 

[DavidDubya]

When I upgraded to W10, IE came alive with Favorites on OneDrive, as expected. How Favorites was redirected to OneDrive is a W10 secret. I'm hesitant to unhook Favorites from OneDrive by moving the folder to Users\myusername because I not sure I will be able to redirect Favorites back to OneDrive again in W10. I need Favorites on OneDrive to sync with three other PCs running IE. In your Favorites folder in your User folder, is there a Location tab pointing to your other physical drive?

 

[Trouble]

Not asking you to change anything.
Just create a folder in your user profile folder called favorites and copy and paste the contents of one favorites folder (your one drive favorites, contents only) into the one you create in your user profile folder.
That should not change in anyway how your one drive sync settings work.
I'm just trying to figure out if that particular tool bar menu item is looking in the wrong place and needs to have a user profile favorites folder to work properly.
No harm no foul, if it doesn't work you can get rid of it.

 

[DavidDubya]

I understand the intent of your suggestion. As I understand OneDrive, if I copy the contents of a OneDrive folder to a local disc folder, that folder will become a local folder and will no longer sync with OneDrive. Is my understanding correct?

 

[Trouble]

IDK.... I don't think so, grabbing some links from one location and pasting them into another should not impact the behavior of the original container I wouldn't think.
But if you want to be safe just create the folder and manually drag and drop a couple new links into it from your browser.
This may very well be a wild goose chase anyway and I may be suggesting a potential solution that might not work.
Feel free to forget about it.

 

[DavidDubya]

I am going to do a "Reset" of W10 and see if the problem disappears. I'll let you know. At this point I'm using W10 as a test to see how well it works. So far I think I should follow the advice I give friends - wait a few months to let MS get the bugs get fixed.

 

[Trouble]

I am going to do a "Reset" of W10 and see if the problem disappears

Good luck, I'll keep my fingers crossed.
You may want to backup / disk image first, if there is anything critical on the system. A lot of people have had some serious problems with the reset function, blue screens and boot loops.

So far I think I should follow the advice I give friends - wait a few months to let MS get the bugs get fixed.

That sounds like a plan to me.

 

[DavidDubya]

I want to close the loop on your suggestion of adding a Favorites folder to myusername folder. I added the folder and copied a folder of Favorites into the folder. I restarted my PC and there was no change in the incorrect display on the Menu Bar Favorites. No change at all. Nice try.

 

[Trouble]

Thanks and thanks for the feedback.