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I pinned Windows Explorer's icon to my taskbar months ago, and all worked fine, including jump lists. Note: I changed the default Explorer's folder using the usual trick of changing the GUID in the shortcut.

Now, all of a sudden, the jump list is empty, and dropping folders on the pinned icon does not produce any effect, nor recently-opened folders show up in the list (although in the taskbar options I made sure to have it remember recently open items).

How can I restore the original functionality, given that all other pinned applications jump lists work correctly?

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64, updated with the latest patches. The OS is in US English and my locale is Italian-Italy.

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  • What is the "usual trick of changing the GUID in the shortcut" ? And what happens if you undo it ?
    – harrymc
    Jan 16, 2011 at 11:12
  • Basically it changes the default folder of the shortcut to My Computer. Nothing fancy. Jan 16, 2011 at 11:25

3 Answers 3

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It turns out that it's some kind of obscure bug in Windows 7. The workaround is deleting the contents of the following (hidden) directories and then restarting:

  • %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
  • %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations

After that, you'll have to re-add all your jump lists, as they will be empty.

Source: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproui/thread/8e3c2a80-392d-44e2-8b9f-6eb5deb9a1e1

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  • This fixed my problem in Windows 10, and I didn't even have to restart. Apr 13, 2019 at 1:34
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It may just be the order of your buttons on the task bar. I just put this on a similar question:

A peculiar foible of Windows taskbar is that shortcuts you pin to it have different priorities over each other, and they are read from left to right. I bet almost nobody knows that, so, if you find your buttons behaving oddly, try a different order. I just solved a longstanding puzzle:

I've been puzzling why I could no longer pin anything to the Explorer jumplist, and had tried clearing the jumplists and the hidden files to no effect: it just meant I lost the 'frequent'/'recent' section too!

From what was said about the refuse bin and shortcuts on the taskbar, I determined that when I pinned a very useful shortcut to 'switch between windows' to the task bar (With Taskbar Pinner: why isn't it there by default!?), I pinned it at the far left side, and it overruled the Explorer jump list, which was pinned centrally. When I moved 'switch between windows' to the right of Explorer, it immediately all worked again.

I keep Explorer in the middle of the task bar because it minimises touchpad movement when getting at my most frequent folders. As a rule, I'd recommend that anyone who wants to avoid the problems above (most of all, making a new profile!!!), it would be good practice to always keep Explorer as first item at the left end of the taskbar.

[As an extra useful tool, I keep FolderSizeExplorer to the right of this, because it shows the size of all the files in a folder, though it doesn't have all the right click and toolbar options that Explorer has, with Classic Explorer added. (Hope CE adds a folder count soon!)]

It's extraordinarily satisfying to have my jumplist back! It's one of the best features of W7.

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  • 2
    Please do not post the same answer to multiple questions. If the same information really answers both questions, then one question (usually the newer one) should be closed as a duplicate of the other. You can indicate this by voting to close it as a duplicate or, if you don't have enough reputation for that, raise a flag to indicate that it's a duplicate. Otherwise, be sure you tailor your answer to this question and don't just paste the same answer in multiple places.
    – DavidPostill
    Oct 6, 2016 at 19:48
  • Sorry David. I don't often need to comment, so don't know the routine. I just noticed there were more posts highlighted to the right, with related questions, so added to both to make it easier to find. In fact, I did fall foul of the other thread, myself, last week, as it only had the one suggestion about removing the hidden lists, which did not work for me, and, at the time, I did not notice the other, longer, thread. A lot will depend on the particular wording chosen for a Google search, so I, don't think it is a bad idea to give people more that one shot at finding the site.
    – Spamlet
    Oct 6, 2016 at 21:34
-1

Microsoft Released an Update for this bug.. Download it from this Official site..

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2607576/a-jump-list-item-is-not-displayed-in-windows-7-or-in-windows-server-20

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