Stuck on Start

Hello,

Surprise - a question from a new user of XP. I just bought a new EVO 800v
notebook and it has XP Pro pre-installed. I am new to XP and networks in
general.

The problem is on the Start Menu. I have two shortcuts that are dead and I
can't remove them. They are in the upper left-hand quadrant area on the xp
start menu. When I click them a dialog pops up saying, "The item you
selected is unavailable. ... Would you like to remove it from the list?" But
when I select "Yes" nothing happens. Opening Properties from the context
menu reveals a blank form and nothing can be entered - if I try I receive
another 'friendly' message: "Can not 'modify' file. Can not read from source
file or disk." The "Remove from this list" command on the context menu
doesn't work either.

I suspect it happen as I was experimenting with the new OS as I was creating
and deleting new users, moving things around, and trying to get the feel of
it. Since I am the sole user and will only occasionally be networking to my
home desktop I have settled on one user with Admin privileges and installed
all my programs to this user. At least for now - when I become better
acquainted with the OS I may do it differently.

So, how can I get rid of the "dead" shortcuts? Any help greatly appreciated.

-- bill

 

If you right click do you get an option to unpin the item? Try that.

 

Try right-clicking and selecting Unpin.

 

I've had strange things like that happen with XP Pro and traced it to file
indexing.

Try opening the command prompt and typing chkdsk /f. It should say
something like cannot get exclusive access to volume, and ask Do you want to
do this at the next boot? (Y/N) (or something like that). Press Y and close
the Command Prompt box. Reboot.

This is a suggestion and not a cure. Hope it works.

 

It's always a suggestion really. Even if you've done a "fix" on 20 PCs
doesn't mean it will work as a fix to somebodies problem here.

Ever see that commercial for this "used car lookup" thing to find out
what folks did to their car? You know, the guy who lets his dog drive
his truck into the pond?

"Mother of Pearl !!!" hehe

Anyway, some folks do some odd things with their PCs also like running 4
anti-virus programs in the background whilst having 600 spyware items
running and SETI, etc.

 

LOL. I know.