Although Windows is on users’ PCs, Microsoft still has some control over what is present and how it works. This works with the integration of services and functionalities that are updated remotely.
One of these updates turned out to have a behavior contrary to expectations and removed from Windows many shortcuts that users had created. Microsoft has already reversed this behavior, but there is bad news. These shortcuts cannot be recovered.
Microsoft Defender is for many the best security solution for Windows. The integration that the software giant has prepared allows it to protect the user and his system, removing malicious or unwanted files.
It was one of these cleaning processes that went further and removed the shortcuts that users had present in the Start menu and taskbar. These were simply deleted, without users being able to revert.
We're investigating an issue where users are unable to access application shortcuts on the Start menu and Taskbar in Windows. For more details and updates, please follow the SI MO497128 in your admin center.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) January 13, 2023
As soon as the first complaints arose, Microsoft has launched an investigation to find out the reason for this behavior in Windows. The cause emerged shortly afterwards and was associated with Microsoft Defender and a new rule that had been added.
This was quickly removed and disabled, leaving Microsoft to look for a solution to the problem that had been created. The idea was to be able to reverse the process and bring back shortcuts to applications and files that had been deleted before.
We've confirmed steps to recreate start menu links for a significant sub-set of the affected applications that were deleted. Please visit https://t.co/FYLP1Jvg7Y for further guidance. Further updates can be found in the admin center under MO497128.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) January 14, 2023
After assessing the situation, Microsoft communicated with users and administrators. indicated the form to be used to prevent the situation from happening again, but left a clear warning. It will not be possible to recover previously deleted shortcuts.
Next Steps: This issue is resolved in Security Intelligence Update build 1.381.2164.0. Installing Security Intelligence Update build 1.381.2164.0 or later should prevent the issue, but it will not restore previously deleted shortcuts. You will need to recreate or restore these shortcuts through other methods.
Unfortunately this is yet another situation that impacts Windows users, thanks to Microsoft. Shortcuts are an important customization and are used repeatedly to simplify access to apps and files.
