SOLVED

'Work - Edge' Desktop Shortcut Reappears after deleting and reopening Edge Browser

Copper Contributor

End user removes the spam Desktop shortcut labeled 'Work - Edge':

srabago_0-1692901859406.png

Once they reopen the Edge browser, the app shortcut reappears.

141 Replies

@Robert_T2000 As far as I know, the Teams shortcut is a different "issue". Every time you log on to a new computer with a new user, Teams Wide Installer checks if teams is allready installed and ads a new shortcut to the desktop. If that shortcut allready exists, it is created with a different name. So I'm guessing this is not really related. 

 The only solution I found right now is to block syncing of .lnk files from OneDrive and SharePoint. This causes some of our users to have a bunch of red x's on their desktop short cuts, but other than that has stopped OneDrive from recreating the shortcut repeatedly. Hopefully they'll sort this out soon. 

@srabago 

@RandomInternetPerson I wouldn't use this workaround as it might cause syncing issues. Happened to us and we had to unblock .lnk files.

We've been doing this for a while for some users for *Chrome*.lnk files as we had some users have duplicates of chrome happening for a couple years now. We've changed it so now the policy includes *edge*.lnk and *teams*.lnk for all staff and no issues but calls for the duplicates have pretty much stopped.
Has anyone got an overall fix for this issue without blocking *.lnk files from being uploaded to OneDrive or having a script clear up the duplicates? Our users have the latest version of Edge installed, but this is still causing significant issues.
You can make a script that deletes the edge work ink files (except for 1) and deploy it using remediations. (Endpoint manager > Devices > remidiations. That way you can also track how many device are affected and if the trend is going downward or not. If Microsoft releases a statement or the the script doesnt show anything as "fixed" within a few weeks, you can disable it. For now, this seems to work in our environment.
we created a PS script and users can run it via a deployed task sequence in software center on their own. I'm actually about to have it run every so often automatically since this doesn't seem to be getting fixed anytime soon.

@Shredwerd009 

Would you be able to share that script? Having the same issue with a user.

I'll have to ask my collegue. I will get back to this.
I have discussed this issue with Microsoft Support, and they have advised we try the following.
Obtain new ADMX/ADML templates for MS Edge browser.
Set: Computer Configuration > Admin Templates > Microsoft Edge Update > Applications > Remove Desktop Shortcuts upon update default = Enabled (Force delete system-level Desktop Shortcuts).
I will provide an update once I have one.

@David256 

 

This is what we're using. It does not work in ps7 but can easily be modified to work in it. We've seen Chrome and Teams duplicates in the past, so also check for those. We then just packaged it with the intune w32 app wrapper and made it available to our users so they can run it in company portal. But can easily be done the same for sccm.

 

So it basically just finds the users desktop path. Gets all items on the desktop that are like *Edge*.lnk, *Chrome*.lnk and *Teams*.lnk and if theres more than 1 of each, deletes them.

 

$DesktopPath = [Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop")
$BadEdgeLnks = Get-ChildItem $DesktopPath | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*Edge*.lnk"}
if ($BadEdgeLnks.Count -gt "1") {
foreach ($BadLnk in $BadEdgeLnks) {
Write-Host "Removing "$DesktopPath\$Badlnk""
Remove-Item "$DesktopPath\$Badlnk" -Force
}
}
$BadChromeLnks = Get-ChildItem $DesktopPath | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*Chrome*.lnk"}
if ($BadChromeLnks.Count -gt "1") {
foreach ($BadChromeLnk in $BadChromeLnks) {
Write-Host "Removing "$DesktopPath\$BadChromeLnk""
Remove-Item "$DesktopPath\$BadChromeLnk" -Force
}
}
$BadTeamsLnks = Get-ChildItem $DesktopPath | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*Teams*.lnk"}
if ($BadTeamsLnks.Count -gt "1") {
foreach ($BadTeamsLnk in $BadTeamsLnks) {
Write-Host "Removing "$DesktopPath\$BadTeamsLnk""
Remove-Item "$DesktopPath\$BadTeamsLnk" -Force
}
}

@JASONPEEL 

 

Awesome!! this should be helpful in the meantime. 

Thanks, I've tried this now, fingers crossed as it's spreading more each day here
This is an absolute mess, some of our big organisation have been hit with this issue. We will attempt to use that GPO fix above. Thanks @DubDubDan.
There should be some kind of service alert for this from Microsoft, similar to the Defender start menu issue from a couple of months ago.
@DubDubDan, any update on how the GPO change worked out? Did Microsoft support have a suggestion for Intune managed computers as well?
So far no work - edge shortcut has re appeared since applying the GPO to me only Thursday, just updated from 117.0.2045.55 to .60 and no shortcut created either, which i was half expecting,
Gonna roll out to everyone today i think and then go and hide somewhere

@James_Esp unfortunately still no solution if you can't apply via GPO... Still running daily compliance searches for the shortcuts and running my powershell script against the list to delete them out... Can't do this forever though! 

@chrisco341 Looking at my registry it seems to have created the below entries
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\
DWORD RemoveDesktopShortcutDefault 1
DWORD UpdateDefault 2
if you have a way to push these out to the HKLM you could try that
I had to delete the icons manually that were already there, but they haven't come back (yet)
I can push them out via CLI, its just more manual and time consuming. I've been hoping MS just fixes the issue. I may have to do this though for staff who we are seeing the most icons for. Thank you