Pinned Start Menu items

I am having a problem I have not been able to find a remedy to except by restarting my computer.
When I click start the the start menu shows, every once in a while there will be two Internet Explorer, two Outlook Express, and two of anything else that I have pinned to the start menu. If I try just right clicking one of them and click remove from list, it also removes the original one. The only way I can fix this is to restart my computer.
Any suggestions on this would greatly be appreciated.

 

I think what may be happening is one instance is the pinned program and the other is most recently used. I disable the display of recently used programs in my Start menu.

 

Thankyou for your reply, but what is shown on the pinned items list is 2 Internet, 2 Outlook Express, 2 Calculator and 2 always used games. I only need one of each. I don't understand why this is happening. One minute there are 5 items pinned to start and the next there are 10 (5 copies of the original 5). I may try what you suggested but I'm afraid that I will have duplicates of up to 30.

 

Hi sull48vg,

This seems to be one of those nuisances that many people suffer through, from time to time. From what I have discovered so far, I don't believe it has ever been tracked down to any one particular common root problem. This also seems to have various fixes suggested that have mixed results. The most common ones used appear to be:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2109361,00.asp

1>To increase or decrease the number of items allowed on the "most recently used ".

2>Involves manually editing the registry and deleting the hkey data known to hold the setting for the "pinned list ". This results in all current pinned items to be cleared and you will have to rebuild your list once again.
The registry hley is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage

Once you have drilled down to the \StartPage key in the right-hand pane will be a value named "Favorites ". This string\value should be deleted. It will be rebuilt, as explained in the link I have provided. Please read the link. NOTE* Some have included the "FavoritesChanges" and "FavoritesResolved ", located in the same place, with no ill effects. Additionally the link suggests you merely rename the string\value. This is matter of preference. I prefer to delete rather than rename in an effort to keep invallid keys down to minimum.

For some, ^the above, worked permanently. For others, it will keep the problem from reoccurring for an extended period of time and unfortunately for a few it didn't seem to work at all. (Personally, I think it's the refresh of the startmenu, that making any option/preference change causes, that forces windows to remember what its suppose to be doing. )

Patience is a virtue....
Eventually the problem seems to sort its self out. You are welcome to give the above a shot and I will continue to see if I can find something more permanent.

If choosing to edit the registry:
Remember, to either set a "manual restore point" or export this hkey via regedits toolbar "export" option.
To do so:
Once you have drilled down to and reached the \StartPage hkey and while it is highlighted, from the toolbar click on file>export. Name the *.reg something that makes since to you and store it a folder of choosing for safe keeping. This will give you the ability to reverse any changes you have made should you choose to. If you find that you have "no need" or "desire" to use the regpatch you have made, you can delete it.

 

duplicate of pinned start menu items

Thank you for getting back to me. I tried what Whiskeyman said and pinned all my most often used programs to the start menu. There were about 10 of them. A little later there were 20. 10 of which were duplicates of the original 10. I didn't want to restart my computer and wait for everything to load so I went to properties of the start menu, clicked advanced, and clicked clear the most recently used list. By the way, there was not a check mark in the box next to where it said to list the most recently used programs. Anyway, once this was done, I checked and the duplicates were gone. At least I know I don't have to restart my computer. If I could only figure out why it lists all my pinned programs again, even when I haven't used them.

I'm afraid to do anything to the registry. I have already had to totally reinstall Windows recently. I lost everything when it crashed. Thank goodness I had put a lot of stuff on CD. I don' t want to take the chance that will happen again.

 

Next to the Clear List button set the Number of program on the Start menu: box to 0.

 

duplicates of pinned items in start menu

Hi Whiskeyman:

Thanks, I checked that and it does say "0 ".