Earlier this week we learned that installing a recent Windows Defender update caused app shortcuts to disappear from the Start menu and taskbar. Now it is reported that the developers have released a patch to solve this problem, but the installation does not restore the previously disappeared shortcuts.
Image source: Microsoft
The missing app shortcuts issue in Windows is reportedly affecting companies and organizations using Microsoft 365 and Windows Defender. It is noted that after installing the latest update, all application shortcuts have disappeared from the Start menu and taskbar, and not just icons for Microsoft products. At the same time, the problem did not affect ordinary Windows users, but only users of computers on the networks of organizations that encountered it.
Some time after the launch of the Windows Defender update, the developers announced that the problem with disappearing shortcuts is related to the new security rule “Attack Surface Attack Surface Reduction Capabilities Configuration”. Microsoft even temporarily blocked this rule to stop spreading the problem further, but didn’t bring back shortcuts that already had the update installed.
According to the source, the bug that caused application shortcuts to disappear in Windows has been fixed in update 1.381.2164.0. Installing this package and later updates will fix the disappearing shortcuts issue. However, the patch does not bring back missing shortcuts if a previous version of the update was installed. Users need to restore them themselves.
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