Why won't my shortcuts open?

June 1, 2020 11:25 PM

I use Firefox and IE. Up until a month ago, when I clicked the IE shortcut pinned to my desktop status bar, IE would open to full screen. Then, the shortcut stopped opening but I would see the webpage I wanted but only minimized on the toolbar. Nothing I could do would enlarge it.

Yesterday, the Firefox shortcut started doing the same thing. Only when I select Microsoft Edge, does the IE Edge shortcut open to full screen. But now, before any of my favorited sites open, I have to revisit them and log in. The two don't seem connected but together, they're really annoying. I have a Windows 10 machine but am not excited about MS Edge and would prefer to not use it. What has happened to my old shortcuts? I can't remember doing anything differently.

posted by CollectiveMind to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Response by poster: When I say I "would see" the webpage minimized on the toolbar, that happened whenever I hovered over the shortcut with my cursor.
posted by CollectiveMind at 11:26 PM on June 1, 2020

What kind of machine are you using, and what's your normal procedure for putting it aside when you're not using it?
posted by flabdablet at 1:51 AM on June 2, 2020

How many monitors are you running? Has this changed at all recently?
posted by McNulty at 1:55 AM on June 2, 2020

Does knowing about this issue help?
posted by flabdablet at 2:48 AM on June 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've seen where an app will open in a location that is off the screen. Press alt+Space, then M and use the arrow keys too see if you can move the window. Flabdablet's video says to use Settings to mae sure it's not in tablet mode, def. check that.
posted by theora55 at 8:01 AM on June 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

If your particular Windows installation came with one of those "helpful" OEM extensions that gives you multiple switchable desktop workspaces per user account such as nView from nVidia (there are plenty of others), you might want to find out how the controls for that work and make sure your missing windows aren't opening on a desktop workspace that isn't currently visible. These things are typically controlled by hotkeys and it's often super easy to activate them by accident if a finger slips onto an Alt key or whatever.
posted by flabdablet at 10:48 AM on June 2, 2020

Response by poster: I'd spent several hours yesterday trying to open them, playing around with settings, reinstalling browers. Nothing seemed to work. MS Edge did, but my shortcuts were all diffferent. When I opened my PC this morning, my shortcuts and my preferred browser, DDG, suddenly worked with all of my shortcuts intact. I checked mode as Jason suggested, and neither tablet or desktop was selected. What was selected was, "Use the appropriate mode for my hardware." So I selected desktop. If it happens again, I'll know what to do, even though I'm not sure what caused it to break or fix itself. I do have two monitors linked together in Display, but that never caused a problem. It would be nice if Windows sent a little note saying, this or that may happen before an update rather than leaving it to users to panic and struggle for a solution. Thanks Mefi.
posted by CollectiveMind at 11:02 AM on June 2, 2020

I do have two monitors linked together in Display, but that never caused a problem.

Might well have triggered this one, though. Windows multi-screen handling has many weird failure modes.
posted by flabdablet at 1:09 PM on June 2, 2020