Jump lists no longer working after changing root c:\ permissions

Question

I was writing a batch file that did a lot of reading and writing to small text files, and I wanted to speed that up by writing to my SSD, which is my root C drive, so after Googling the access denied error I was receiving when trying to write there, I changed the ownership of my entire C:\ drive and all files on it, and changed permissions to Full Access for my user (I'm the only user on the machine and I'm the administrator, but I wasn't the "Owner" of C:).

After restarting the computer, not only did this not fix the problem (I still can't write to the C:\ drive from a batch file), now when I right-click on Excel, Word or any of the other apps on my taskbar, the jump lists do not appear. Please help!

I knew going into this that this would make my system less secure and was willing to accept that. But the last thing I ever expected was that making my C drive MORE accessible would somehow TAKE AWAY features of Windows. This seems so counterintuitive.

Answer 1

Hey there, OstinatoFreak,

Welcome to our Microsoft Community.

For the problem that you still can't write to the C:\ drive from the batch file, we could try changing the permissions on the C drive to EVERYONE, the following steps are given:

1. Right click Local Disk(C:), select Advanced under Security.

2. Change > Type everyone

For the issue you mentioned about the jump list not working, you can try to rebuild the jump list as follows:

Note: This steps will reset the list and delete all the items stored in it:

1.OpenFile Explorer (Windows key + E).

**2.**Navigate to the following location:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

3.Right-click on the following file and clickDelete.

1b4dd67f29cb1962.automaticDestinations-ms

4. Restart your computer to apply the changes.

I also found a thread with a similar problem to yours, which you can also refer to:

Jump Lists not working in Windows 10 - Microsoft Community

By the way, regarding your question about certain functions you want to achieve with a batch file, the best place to get help with it is Microsoft Learn(English only), which aims to support more advanced users like you.

Here is a link to the forum where you can raise specific scenarios and share your idea to help solve the problem.

Thank you for your time and effort working on this issue. If there are any updates or changes, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Have a nice day and stay safe!

Sincerely,

Olivia - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Actually I just wanted to restore everything back to the way it was, and a person in another forum gave me this solution which is what ended up working:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
then
sfc /scannow

(in administrator mode command line)

However, it only worked 90%. Jump lists are working now, but unfortunately for some reason, notepad.exe no longer works. When I double-click on it, type it as a command, or whatever, my computer acts like it's loading, then it suddenly just stops and gives up. The Notepad window never comes up.

I uninstalled Notepad, restarted, reinstalled it, restarted, and it still didn't work. But then I found another thread that advocated removing Notepad with this Powershell command:

Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.WindowsNotepad* | Remove-AppxPackage

I also uninstalled it again using the Windows interface. After I restarted and reinstalled, it worked, but it was an old version of Notepad that didn't support Dark mode. Notepad itself presented an Install button at the top to update it to the more recent version. After I updated, Notepad didn't work again. So I went through the Powershell thing again, and now I'm stuck using an old, bright white version of Notepad. (BTW Microsoft should know that it takes an incredibly long amount of time to install such a tiny piece of software - multiple minutes waiting every time I tell Windows to install Notepad. Does Microsoft know that they're uploading server is evidently powered by 14.4K dialup modems and carrier pigeons?)

The other 5% that wasn't fixed: when I click on the Windows start menu, it comes up, but I am unable to type anything in the search box. If I click on the search box, it will not give me a cursor.

Answer 3

I understand that sometimes troubleshooting can be a bit time-consuming and the fact that the issue is still not resolved can be frustrating. To troubleshoot our issue, let's perform the following steps:

1. Create a local administrator account Windows Key+ R to open Run Then type netplwiz und click OK. Then add a local account with administrator permissions. Sign in without a Microsoft account and choose local account And then grant this user Administrator permission

Under the newly created local account, check if this problem still exists.

We have to go through a series of steps to find the real cause of the problem. Your cooperation will be of great help for us to resolve the issue. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Answer 4

Under the new account, Notepad still didn't work.

However, in the new account, the Windows Start button allowed me to type (i.e. I was able to type "not" and have Notepad appear).

Not sure if this is relevant, but when I logged out of the temporary account and back into my normal account so I could go back to this forum and continue this thread with you, I clicked on Outlook, and it crashed. When I loaded it again, it asked if I wanted to run in Safe mode, and when I said No, it had me choose an Outlook profile. I canceled, loaded Outlook one more time, and for some reason it was fine, like nothing happened.

Answer 5

I noticed that you are updating Notepad to the latest version by clicking the Install button at the top of it, which may be causing an exception to Notepad, we can use the latest version by downloading Notepad directly from the Microsoft Store:

• Uninstall the current Notepad
• Download the latest version of Notepad from the Microsoft Store

From your description, you were able to type in the new account, and when you went back to your normal account there were some problems with Outlook, although the problems disappeared automatically later, all these signs indicate that your current account profile was corrupted. Two solutions are available in this case:

1. Create a new account and migrate the data under the current account to the newly created account

Copy files to the new user profile

2. Reinstall the operating system: Since the account configuration is corrupted, we are unable to identify the exact cause and therefore cannot repair it.

You can refer to this thread for the detailed steps: How to: Perform a Custom Installation of Windows 11 and Windows 10 - Microsoft Community

If there are any updates or changes, please do not hesitate to let me know.