StartMenu Shortcuts to Network Fileshare Locations Disappear on Restart

from Stardock Forums

I have been trying to set up Start11 on my personal computer for my work-from-home days for weeks. Setting up shortcuts is tedious and time-consuming, so I've been tackling it in chunks. Everything was working fine when I was setting up icons for locally installed programs and shortcuts to folders and files located on my personal computer. However, as I've started trying to set up shortcuts to folders and files on the work network, I'm running into problems.

While on my work VPN, I'm able to add those network fileshare icons / shortcuts to virtual drives I've mapped no problem. When I disconnect from VPN the icons are still there, but don't work. (Obviously.) However, on restart, most (but not all) of the icons disappear. I've been able to determine that the icons that do not disappear are those pointing at the mapped drives, and the ones that disappear are the ones pointing to folders and files within the drives. This is a deal breaker for me and if it isn't fixed, I can't use this product. (I have been using EdgeTileCreators, but I don't expect it to be available for Windows 11, and I'm trying to get prepared to upgrade.)

Another note about the disappearing icons. Once I reconnect to VPN the icons don't magically reappear. I do have to go back and add them manually. (Not possible with the 50+ icons I need.) However, after manually re-adding them, they retain all applied formatting (color, icon, hidden filename). Thought that was worth noting.

 

Stardock Version: 1.1

Windows Version: Windows 10 Home, 21H2, 64 bit

I can probably provide more details if asked / guided. I'm not highly computer savvy.

start menu products
2,205 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Need complete Start version check the about tab in the app for the full version

 


AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Beta 1.17 is out now have you tried that ?

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I just tried the beta and the problem persists. Additionally, now 90% of my startup apps do not run on startup. I'm reverting back to the other version for now as the startup issue is fairly crippling.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Forgot to mention that I did restart a couple of times with the beta installed and confirmed that the startup apps not running was happening consistently. After I reverted to 1.11 startup apps worked fine again. (Still have the issue with the network shortcut icons disappearing though.)

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

With the official 1.2 release I went ahead and updated. Whatever the startup issue was I had with the beta, the official 1.2 release worked just fine for me.

 

All my icons pointing to network fileshare subfolder locations on my personal machine still disappear on restart when I am not on VPN. However, I've found a workaround. I've created an out-of-the-way folder full of shortcuts to the fileshare locations I want start menu icons for. I can make those local shortcuts into start menu icons, and they persist through restart. Additionally, this makes it much faster and easier to set up icons for network fileshare subfolders. Rather than having to pin a folder using the browse for a folder menu and manually navigate through a thousand subfolder subfolders to the one I need every time, I use the pin a file method using the file explorer style menu and easily grab the shortcut from the pile I've made. I am completely satisfied with this workaround (improvement?) and would actually continue to use this method even if an official resolution happens, just because the pin a file / file explorer menu is so much faster and easier to use.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

One more update: After having switched over to the workaround method mentioned above, I noticed a massive performance improvement. Start11 had been extremely slow and prone to frequent crashes. However, after one day of use with icons created from local shortcuts and no icons directly pointing to network locations, it's become very responsive and stable. Adding and adjusting icons is now pretty quick and easy. It's clear to me now that attempting to make icons pointing to network locations was severely hurting the whole experience. Having switched to the shortcut method, everything is running really well.