I am running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. An issue I keep coming across completely at random is that items pinned to my taskbar and start menu somehow become corrupt. The icons turn into a generic-looking white paper icon and, when clicked, display the following message:
The item you selected is unavailable. It might have been moved, renamed, or removed. Do you want to remove it from the list?
I have absolutely no clue what causes my pinned items to go into limbo like this. Everything will be fine then, all of a sudden, some or all of my pinned items start behaving like this, making me have to repin them.
Am I doing something wrong here or is there just a weird bug in Windows 7?
Update
I just noticed something peculiar. I had a mess of disorganized icons on my desktop, so I created some folders on my desktop and moved those icons to the proper folders. I just looked in one of those folders and saw a hidden folder called User Pinned that, oddly enough, contained all the pinned items in question. It appears that I somehow lassoed this folder up when I was doing my group moves, but I don't remember ever seeing it on my desktop to begin with.
I am certain this has something to do with it. I guess I'll have to catch it as soon as it happens again.
update 2011/4/6
I am closer to figuring this out. Somehow, the aforementioned User Pinned folder got moved from its native location to a folder I created on my desktop (I have no idea how this happened). Every time I'd see it, I'd delete it. That's when I discovered that my pinned items were being corrupted because they were trying to reference shortcuts that no longer existed. After I'd repin all my programs, that folder were reappear in the same folder. It's as if Windows tracks the reference to this folder so that, if moved, it knows where to recreate it if it's deleted. So I moved the folder back to its native location of C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. So far, it seems to be working. Let's hope this doesn't happen again.
Best Answer
I am closer to figuring this out. Somehow, the aforementioned User Pinned folder got moved from its native location to a folder I created on my desktop (I have no idea how this happened). Every time I'd see it, I'd delete it. That's when I discovered that my pinned items were being corrupted because they were trying to reference shortcuts that no longer existed. After I'd repin all my programs, that folder were reappear in the same folder. It's as if Windows tracks the reference to this folder so that, if moved, it knows where to recreate it if it's deleted. So I moved the folder back to its native location of C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. So far, it seems to be working. Let's hope this doesn't happen again.