Each time you install a program on the Windows PC, a shortcut is automatically created on the desktop and one on the Start menu. After a certain period of time, it may be that the desktop is filled with program shortcut icons and so also the Start menu, which in its display in Windows 7 mode fills its list with many icons.
A standard and often forgotten maintenance procedure for Windows is to check the connections on the desktop and on the PC disk, to check if the icons on the desktop and on the Start menu are still valid references to existing programs and files, if they are not broken links and even if they are not icons that lead to dangerous or harmful sites or programs.
While the residual icons left after uninstalling a program or deleting a file only create confusion, dangerous desktop shortcuts are those that can lead to the download of malware or link to sponsored sites.
Of course, if it's a virus, the antivirus should already have blocked them, but you never know that something may still have been hidden behind a desktop connection or on the seemingly harmless Start menu.
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1) First of all, you can check the icons that are no longer valid on the desktop using the maintenance tool included with Windows .
From the Windows Start menu, just search for the word maintenance to find and start the hidden tool called: Run maintenance tasks automatically or System maintenance .
This tool makes a quick and easy check on unused shortcuts on the desktop and the Start menu.
2) The Bad Shortcut Killer program is a freeware which scans the Windows start menu, Jumplist and desktop to detect broken links or shortcuts that are no longer valid.
3) Broken Shortcut Fixer is a similar program, to check the connections on the desktop and on the whole computer disk, to find all the references that are now orphaned, no longer valid and to be deleted.
4) Shortcut scanner, finally, is the program to be used to check that the shortcuts and icons on the desktop, on the Start menu and in all sectors of the disk, are safe and do not refer instead to possible sources of malware .
This tool checks the icons and even hidden links to see if they contain malicious code or if they are suspicious references.
The analysis takes place in all the units of the PC and detects the broken and dangerous links, which are practically the files with the extension .lnk.
The final report shows the suspicious or risky links, which will then have to be checked manually.
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