Windows 11- clean install on laptop - delete restored orphaned icons - half of the Windows 10 PC is lost

tfwul · Apr 25, 2022

Yesterday I did a clean Windows 11 install on a formatted C-drive of my laptop.
During the setup I signed on to my Outlook account.
This resulted in program desktop icons from my desktop Windows 10 pc being transferred to the laptop.
Obviously, they were all 'empty/blanc/white' images : the linked programs were not available on my laptop.
(And will not be)

Regretfully, at that point I made a mistake: I deleted them.
Today, after booting my Windows 10 desktop PC, 20 of the 42 desktop icons were gone... !

Great...
Restored todays Windows image: same situation
Restored yesterday's image: still the same
After an hour I gave up. Will try to recreate the shortcuts manually.

All this said, I agree/confess, I shouldn't have done this Windows 11 install.

tfwul · Apr 25, 2022

Later
Just now 'discovered' that the links of the deleted desktop icons most probably were stored within \OneDrive\Desktop, whereas the ones that were not deleted were stored locally, i.e. within C:\Users\Public\Desktop, hence, when deleting desktop icons on my laptop, they were removed from OneDrive and from my desktop PC.

How to 'force' Windows to store them locally?

Thanks.

Haydon · Apr 25, 2022

Did you succeed in recreating the shortcuts manually? Then sync to OneDrive and verify that there is an offline/local copy.

Backups and images usually make a copy of offline/local OneDrive, they do not make a copy of what is in the Cloud.

What I think what happened, is that Cloud OneDrive made the icons available to your laptop > you deleted the icons > the icons are no longer available to your other computer > see top paragraph

IMHO, the mishap has nothing to do with the W11 installation on your laptop (although the blank icons may have confused you) you could have committed the unfortunate deletion with any other computer that accesses your cloud OneDrive.

Anyway, good luck

tfwul · Apr 25, 2022

I did restore them and all looks fine,. However, the .lnk files reside on OneDrive. When creating a shortcut, they are automatically stored there. The shortcuts that were not removed from my desktop PC, they were actually stored on my C: drive, hence there was no way to remove them.
Probably at one point in time Windows started to store them on OneDrive without me knowing.

I have not been able to figure out how to change to storage location of the shortcuts.

johnlgalt · Apr 25, 2022

The way you force them to store locally is to stop allowing OneDrive to share your Desktop folder, on both machines.

Right click OneDrive --> Click the gear icon in top right --> Settings --> Backup tab --> Manage backup button --> uncheck Desktop (Click on it and ht check box should turn to a gray-ish icon).

Then, and only then, will you get only locally stored icons.

glasskuter · Apr 25, 2022

johnlgalt said:
stop allowing OneDrive to share your Desktop folder,

I completely agree and never have any of my machines sync my desktop to onedrive. BUT...so many people store files and folders on their desktop rather than doing it the correct way and using their user folders. Then they can sync their user folders and everything works as it should.
I mean, IMO pictures should be in pictures and documents in documents. If done properly, one can stop syncing their desktop to onedrive and their shortcuts will always work. When one syncs multiple desktops to onedrive, it can cause a real mess. I learned that the hard way.

I've seen desktops where there was so many files and folders on a desktop, I don't see how anyone could find anything. Being a stickler for organization, it makes no sense to me, but most folks do it. In those cases, they have to sync their desktop to have all those files and folders on onedrive. Thus lies the problem.

Haydon · Apr 25, 2022

Perhaps the OP can live with the 30 day grace period before things get permanently deleted from OneDrive's recycle bin.

It is perhaps the exception that one's desktop is always 100% tidy.

johnlgalt · Apr 27, 2022

glasskuter said:
I completely agree and never have any of my machines sync my desktop to onedrive. BUT...so many people store files and folders on their desktop rather than doing it the correct way and using their user folders. Then they can sync their user folders and everything works as it should.
I mean, IMO pictures should be in pictures and documents in documents. If done properly, one can stop syncing their desktop to onedrive and their shortcuts will always work. When one syncs multiple desktops to onedrive, it can cause a real mess. I learned that the hard way.

I've seen desktops where there was so many files and folders on a desktop, I don't see how anyone could find anything. Being a stickler for organization, it makes no sense to me, but most folks do it. In those cases, they have to sync their desktop to have all those files and folders on onedrive. Thus lies the problem.

Lol. My mother is a prime example of this. And she stubbornly refuses to accept any other method of storage / categorization / classification of the files.

To her credit, though, she is we;ll over 70. I'm a lot more 'accepting' of her lack of use of even a basic filing system. Resignedly, for sure, but still, more accepting than I was in the past.