freelanceit Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 For some months now I have been having a problem with the Paint.Net icon in the Windows Start>All Programs menu. The fact is it keeps disappearing. I have a regular 'image' routine where I backup, using Acronis True Image to a removable USB drive and also to a second partition on a second hard drive in my PC tower. Depending upon which software I am testing/looking at it may be necessary forme to re-image my hard drive back every week or so. My usual procedure at this time is to re-image from either my removable USB drive or my second hard drive in the PC tower. Once this has been done, I check for any software updates, download them, install them and then do a full image backup to my desired disks. My problem is that, when I re-image from my hard drives to my main C: drive, as soon as the system reboots, the Paint.Net icon is missing from the Start>All Programs menu. Now it was there when I originally imaged my hard drive and, theoretically, it should still be there after the image has been copied back to my C: drive. Problem is, it isn't. If I search for Paint.Net all I get is the Paint.Net folder or Paint.Net.exe application. I can open the Paint.Net folder and navigate to (C:>Program Files>Paint.Net), click on the PdnRepair.exe file and the command prompt will open and begin to repair the Paint.Net registry entry. As soon as the repair has finished and I press Entere to exit the command prompt I can look in the Start>All Programs Menu and the Paint.Net icon is back where it should be. Click the Icon and Paint.Net works perfectly. Then a few days later (or when I re-image the hard drive) the Paint.Net icon has disappeared again and I have to go through the whole rigamaroll of repairing the registry entry again. This has only started happenning since I downloaded version 3.58.4081.24580 I cannot recall having the problem with earlier versions. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit on a Packar Bell IExtreme i6253 with Intel Core i5 processor and 3GB RAM Any suggestions as to the cause and possible remedy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kreemoweet Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 The items in the Start Menu All Programs list are the names of .lnk files (aka shortcuts) located in either the all-users start menu folder (c:\programdata\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\ usually) or your user-specific start menu folder (c:\users\<yourusername>\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\ usually). Evidently you are losing this file somewhere in your backup/restore procedure. As far as I can tell, by default Paint.net creates a shortcut in the all-users start menu when installed, removes it when uninstalled, and does not mess with it otherwise. There are no registry entries involved. Of course, if you specified a per-user installation of Paint.net, then you would not have its icon in your All Programs list unless you were logged in as that user. I would suggest looking in the Acronis support forums for help on this issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelanceit Posted July 6, 2011 Author Share Posted July 6, 2011 The items in the Start Menu All Programs list are the names of .lnk files (aka shortcuts) located in either the all-users start menu folder (c:\programdata\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\ usually) or your user-specific start menu folder (c:\users\<yourusername>\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\ usually). Evidently you are losing this file somewhere in your backup/restore procedure. As far as I can tell, by default Paint.net creates a shortcut in the all-users start menu when installed, removes it when uninstalled, and does not mess with it otherwise. There are no registry entries involved. Of course, if you specified a per-user installation of Paint.net, then you would not have its icon in your All Programs list unless you were logged in as that user. I would suggest looking in the Acronis support forums for help on this issue. Thanks for your reply, kreemoweet. I have looked in both c:\programdata\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs and also c:\users\<yourusername>\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs but the Paint.Net link is nowhere to be found. I cannot rule out that it may very well be an Aconis problem; however, I do find it strange that this problem has only occurred with version 3.58.4081.24580. I have been using Acronis for imaging my system for many years now and I have been using Paint.Net for the last two or three years. This is the first time that I have had any problem with Paint.Net and Acronis. I suppose another option would be to use an alternative imaging application and see if the same thing happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kreemoweet Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Strange indeed. Do you have your Search facility set to ignore "hidden" files? I ask because your search for "paint.net" should also have turned up the paint.net folder in your appdata\local user profile folder. I believe Acronis will allow you to mount your backup images, so you can see if the paint.net shortcut has indeed been copied to your backup. If you are not in fact "imaging" your c: partition, but using a file-based backup, perhaps Acronis is using the Archive bit/file attribute and paint.net is creating the shortcut with the bit not set? Do you have anything auto-running at bootup/login that might possibly be removing the shortcut? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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