How to remove shortcuts when the program has been deleted?

I recently uninstalled a program, but I forgot to delete the shortcut on my desktop before uninstalling it! So now, whenever I try to move the shortcut into the recycle bin, it says:

"Could not find this item

This item is no longer located in C:\etc\etc. Verify the item's location and try again"

Help is greatly appreciated.

 

hmm try unlocking the file using unlocker and then to clean the leftovers try using CCleaner mate

 

^^ or try using built-in windows desktop clean up
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306542

cheers ...

 

+1 for ccleaner

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, but unlocker, unfortunately, didn't work
Also, I can't seem to get past step 3 in qhn's link (I can't find the "display" button"). So until I get that working, exactly how would I go about using CCleaner for the shortcut?

EDIT: found the problem, the link was for XP only, and it seems as though desktop cleanup was removed in vista

 

What's that mean exactly? Were you able to delete the short cut?

 

Have you tried to elevate rights in your comp? Or safe mode? Or try Shift-Delete combination?

cheers ...

 

why not try right-clicking on the desktop and selecting refresh?

 

Vista removes mine automatically when I restart.

 

+1. That or a restart. After all, if it cannot find it to delete it, it certainly cannot recreate it.

 

Wow, so many good replies. Thanks for the help, and I was eventually able to remove it by simply reinstalling the program to delete the shortcut.

However, now I have encountered a second problem, one of my shortcuts (VLC player) is "corrupt and unreadable". Restarts, refreshes, and shift-deletes do nothing to help erase this file. Here is a picture if it is of any help.

What I meant to say was that the desktop cleanup wizard, as in the program itself, is only found in XP, and was removed from Vista.

 

Why are you having so many problems with icons? Is your hard drive functioning properly?

 

haha, yes, my hard drive is fine. The corrupt one is really the only problem I've had. The shortcut problem from before was just my mistake because I forgot to remove it before uninstalling the program.

 

You might be able to use the startup repair function, as briefly discussed in this techguy thread. This neowin thread also indicates that the startup repair method works for the error type you're getting, 0x80070570.

 

**EDIT: All's been fixed, everything is good now**

 

Congrats! What was it?

 

Well I took out the hard drive and put it into a 2.5" HD enclosure. Then I backed up the files I needed, put it back into my laptop, did a "Dell Factory Image Restore", and dumped my files back on.

 

Ahh, the short and brutal, yet eminently effective, repair method!

 

Ha, yeah. But nothing else I tried worked, so it was a last resort really. Last known good boots, restore points, safe mode, and even startup repair again, nothing.

 

Still, at least it worked, right? I dread the thought of having to reinstall because, being an essentially lazy person, I've never made a slipstreamed set of up-to-date disks, so the last time I reinstalled, I went all the way back to XP SP1a on _Sony's so-called restore disks - the only saving grace was that I had already downloaded SP2 before starting, so I managed to avoid spending three nights in the company of WinUpdate (I learned that lesson the hard way the first time I had to reinstall, ughh). Now that SP3 is out (and I've upgraded from XPHome to XPPro, perhaps I'll finally get off my lazy butt and make a proper set of re-installation disks ).

 

I know exactly what you mean, but for me, it's more a matter of time than it is laziness. I mean, I have to dedicate a good portion of the day just to get the computer back up and running.

But yeah, I was very happy that it worked, and that my drive was still accessible (no rewriting that 9-page assignment, woot!).

 

Oh boy! That would have been disaster - I don't think teachers buy the my-computer-ate-my-homework explanation any more than they used to buy the my-dog-ate-my-homework explanation.

So, I am very much relieved that you were able to recover that most important of documents. Sort of along those lines, though, it's actually rather amazing (and a little frightening) just how much you can actually recover from a hard drive - even one that's been formatted.

I once formatted the hdd in an old laptop that had WinME installed in order to try my hand at some linux installations, which ultimately didn't work out because the laptop was too old, its ACPI tables too badly written by the manufacturer (caused overheating problems), and I too overconfident in my ability to master linux in an evening or two. Unfortunately, in my haste to make a fool of myself, I forgot to make a backup copy of the old WinME installation, and the so-called recovery disks from _Compaq did nothing of the kind.

So, after giving up on my illusions of being a linux insta-genius, I tried to get the old WinME installation back by using a number of different data-recovery apps to see what I could find. I wasn't able to get a functioning copy of WinME back, although I did get a large number of system files. I also managed to dredge up substantial pieces of documents, images, and the like that had been deleted from the computer when it was still being used at least up to a year before the time that it was retired.

That was quite an eye-opener, and totally convinced me that the only real way to prevent someone from reading private data off of a discarded hard drive is to physically destroy the disk itself; anything short of that won't satisfy me (of course, it doesn't hurt that blow-torching an old hard drive is a blast in and of itself, either ).

 

It's amazing how much one can learn from making mistakes - forces them to find solutions. Honestly, I can't wait to make more mistakes, haha.

 

Funny, that's what I keep telling my wife - she's not having any of it, though