If you’ve noticed that a Microsoft Edge shortcut keeps appearing on your desktop without your intention or permission, it can be annoying and confusing. This issue can clutter your desktop and become an annoyance. In this brief guide, we’ll explore the common causes behind the appearance of Microsoft Edge shortcuts on your desktop and provide you with quick solutions to prevent it from happening.
How to Fix Microsoft Edge Shortcut Keeps Appearing on Desktop
Let’s quickly see how to resolve the Microsoft Edge issue:
Quick Answer
Follow the below steps to fix this repeatedly appearing Desktop shortcut issue:
1. Open Registry Editor on your device.
2. Navigate to the location: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft.
3. Here, right-click on Microsoft.
4. Select New > Key.
5. Rename the newly created key as EdgeUpdate.
6. Right-click on EdgeUpdate and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
7. On the right pane, right-click on it and rename it as CreateDesktopShortcutDefault.
8. Right-click on this string and click on Modify to set the value data to 0.
9. Create one more DWORD (32-bit) Value and rename it as RemoveDesktopShortcutDefault.
10. Again, modify and set the value data to 1 for this string.
11. Close Registry Editor and restart the PC.
What Causes Microsoft Edge Shortcut Error?
As we all can sense this might be a company’s stunt to enforce users to use Edge and set it as the default browser on their PCs, things seem ugly and fishy when the shortcut keeps reappearing on the PCs where it is already the default browser. Because there is no official statement from Microsoft on this, we can just speculate on a bug on the desktop or a bed bug strategy.
Here, we have given the solutions to solve the issue.
Method 1: Turn Off Microsoft Edge Startup Boost
1. Launch Microsoft Edge on your PC.
2. On the top right corner, click the three horizontal dots.
3. From the pop-up menu. select Settings option.
4. Select the System and performance tab from the left pane.
5. Toggle to turn off Startup boost.
Method 2: Remove Microsoft Edge as Default Browser
1. Press Windows + I keys together to open Settings.
2. Click on Apps.
3. From the panel on the right side, navigate to Default apps.
4. Scroll down to search or enter Google Chrome directly on the search bar.
5. Click on Set default.
Also Read: How to Change Chrome as Default Browser
Method 3: Disable Microsoft Edge on Windows Startup
1. Press Ctrl + Shift+ Esc keys together to launch Task Manager.
2. Now, tab to the Startup apps.
3. Locate and select Microsoft Edge.
4. Now, locate and click on Disable option at the bottom-right side of the screen.
Also Read: How to Disable Microsoft Edge in Windows 11
Method 4: No More Edge-Related Scheduled Tasks
Often, Microsoft Edge runs various scheduled tasks after you log in to your PC. In the above method, we disabled Microsoft Edge to run during startup. To absolutely exclude any Edge-related tasks, stopping these scheduled tasks can help fix the error.
1. Open Task Scheduler from the Start Menu.
2. From the left-side menu, click on Task Scheduler Library.
3. Locate tasks scheduled by Microsoft Edge by scrolling down through the list of tasks.
4. On the right pane, click on Disable.
5. Follow the same for every task in the schedule by Microsoft Edge.
Also Read: Fix Microsoft Edge Not Working in Windows 10
Method 5: Change Microsoft Edge Group Policy
Note: The following steps can only be performed on Windows Professional and Server versions.
1. Launch the Edit Group Policy control panel from the Start Menu.
2. On the left-side panel, under Local Computer Policy click on Computer Configuration.
3. Navigate Administrative Templets > Windows Components
4. Scroll down to search and select Microsoft Edge.
5. Now, locate Allow Microsoft Edge to pre-launch at Windows startup, when the system is idle… and double-click on it.
6. Select the Disabled button.
7. Click Apply and then OK to save the changes.
Method 6: Modify Local Group Policy Editor Settings
Note: The following steps can only be performed on Windows Professional and Server versions.
1. Open the Edit Group Policy utility from the start menu.
2. From the left-side panel, click on Administrative Templates under User Configuration.
3. Click and Expand Control Panel branch folder.
4. Click on Personalization.
5. On the right-hand window pane, locate and select Prevent changing desktop icons.
6. Select Enabled and click on OK.
Also Read: Disable Windows 10 Microsoft Edge Notification
Method 7: Modify System Registry
A modification to the Registry Editor is slightly volatile and involves some amount of risk. Despite the fact that this is a sure-shot fix to the Microsoft Edge shortcut that keeps appearing on the Desktop, we do not recommend you perform the method before you try any other troubleshooting solution.
Note: Make a backup of registry keys to restore to previous settings in case of manual errors during modification.
Option I: Using Registry File
1. Create a Text Document, i.e., a Notepad File
2. Copy the following command and paste it on the Notepad:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate] "CreateDesktopShortcutDefault"=dword:00000000 "RemoveDesktopShortcutDefault"=dword:00000001
3. Click on File in the top menu and from the pop-up, select Save as.
4. While saving the file, name the file in .reg format e.g., edgeshortcut.reg
5. Change the Save as type to All files by clicking on the drop-down arrow.
6. Save the file, conveniently to the Desktop.
7. From the desktop, double-click on the registry file to launch it.
8. Choose Yes on the prompt that appears.
9. Restart the PC.
Option II: Manually Modify Registry Keys
The manual method is more of a bulky and messy way to modify Registry Editor. Nevertheless, if you want to follow a manual way to perform the same, these are the steps you can follow:
1. Press the Windows key and search Registry Editor and click on Open.
2. Copy the command from here and paste it into the Registry address bar:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft
3. Right-click on Microsoft.
4. Select New and then click on Key.
5. Rename the newly created key as EdgeUpdate.
6. Right-click on EdgeUpdate and select New.
7. From the pop-up, choose DWORD (32-bit) Value.
8. On the right pane, right-click on it.
9. Rename it as CreateDesktopShortcutDefault.
10. Right-click on it and from the pop-up, click on modify to Set the value data to 0.
11. Create one more DWORD (32-bit) Value.
12. Rename it as RemoveDesktopShortcutDefault.
13. Modify and set the value data to 1.
14. Close Registry Editor and restart the PC.
This will finally remove the Edge shortcut and it no more be able to create one.
Method 8: Uninstall Microsoft Edge
By this time, one of the aforementioned solutions would have fixed this issue for you. However, ultimately if you do not want to perform any of these fixes on your PC or the Edge in a notorious way that has left you bothered to the edge, you can uninstall it completely. Windows does not directly allow a user to uninstall the Microsoft Edge browser from a PC.
1. We would have first to download Geek Uninstaller.
2. Launch the uninstaller program on your PC.
3. From the list of programs, navigate to and right-click on Microsoft Edge.
4. Select Force Removal.
5. Approve by clicking on Yes.
6. Do the same with Microsoft Edge Update program.
Recommended: Fix Error STATUS BREAKPOINT in Microsoft Edge
We hope that this guide was helpful and you were able to fix the Microsoft Edge shortcut that keeps appearing on Desktop issue. Let us know which method worked for you the best. If you have any queries or suggestions, then feel free to drop them in the comments section below.
