Quick access in Explorer disappears inexplicably

Question

Dear Community

I am facing a pressing issue in the support department of my company regarding the Quick Access bar in Windows Explorer, which inexplicably disappears. The pinned links there are getting detached and simply vanish.

All devices in our company are using:

Windows 11 22H2 (Build 22621.2861)

No roaming profiles

No OneDrive

No data synchronization (not even with Microsoft)

So far, I have taken the following measures, but without success:

Delete the contents of the folders: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

Delete the contents of the folders: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations

Create a new file: f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms in the folder %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

In the Registry (Regedit), searched for the navigation but did not find: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Ribbon"

Information:

I observed that by on one device, both folders under %APPDATA% (AutomaticDestinations and CustomDestinations) were empty when the Quick Access data was missing. When I added a new folder to Quick Access, the cache entries reappeared after a few seconds. It seemed like a synchronization attempt, even though we do not have it enabled.

Question/Assumption:

Could it be that there is still an attempt at data synchronization, trying to sync Quick Access with O365 (from Word, Excel, etc.), which is not supported due to our settings? And as a result, the Quick Access entries are lost?

I urgently need assistance, as more and more users are reporting this problem.

Thank you in advance for any helpful input.

Best regards

Reto

Answer 1

Hello Bochsler You can try to reset quick access:

1. Open explorer, go to view tab and click on 'Options'
2. Choose change folder and search options
3. Click 'clear' under the 'general' tab If it doesn't work, try to run this command in cmd:
4. sfc /scannow
5. DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth I hope this helps! Please let me know if you need any further assistance If the Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Answer 2

Dear Karlie Weng, Thank you for the detailed instructions, which I followed. As a result, the Quick Views were deleted unintentionally. Our issue is that seemingly pinned folders (symbol: Needle) suddenly disappear, even though they are supposed to be fixed.
This should not happen. Additionally, not all of them are deleted simultaneously; individual ones vanish from the list. In an attempt to address the problem, I tried restoring the file "f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms" from a backup to the path "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations." Unfortunately, the tips for steps 4 and 5 did not yield any success, and the problem persists.
I wonder about the technical aspect of how something is simply deleted from the pinned Quick View. Could this be due to clearing cache or similar actions?

I would understand if all entries disappeared or if the file "f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms" were completely replaced.

However, none of these scenarios seem to be the case.

Thank you for your help
Best regards, Reto