I am looking for a way of removing the "Internet Explorer (64-bit)" shortcut from the 'Start\All Programs' folder in a Windows 7 image. Our customer wants us to remove the shortcut from our image which we are creating using MDT. We have tried using Group Policy Preferences to delete the icon but have had no success. Any ideas would be gratefully received.Jonathan Conway | My blog: Conway's IT Blog | Twitter: jonconwayuk | Linkedin: Jonathan Conway MCITP: Enterprise Administrator MCP MCSE 2003 MCTS SCCM 2007, Windows 7 Config & Deploying VCP

That's what I'm trying to assertain as part of finding a solution to this. The shortcut is there by default when you install 64-bit Windows and I've tried removing it from "Default" user but that doesn't resolve the problem. So it looks like it is created by Windows Setup.Jonathan Conway | My blog: Conway's IT Blog | Twitter: jonconwayuk | Linkedin: Jonathan Conway MCITP: Enterprise Administrator MCP MCSE 2003 MCTS SCCM 2007, Windows 7 Config & Deploying VCP

Hi, How about prevent Internet Explorer from being pinned to Taskbar and Start Menu. You can try modify related registry to make Internet Explorer unavailable for pinning to the taskbar or for inclusion in the Start menu's MFU list. More detail, you can refer this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378459(VS.85).aspx#exclusion_lists Hope that helps. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Leo Huang TechNet Community Support

Hi, How about prevent Internet Explorer from being pinned to Taskbar and Start Menu. You can try modify related registry to make Internet Explorer unavailable for pinning to the taskbar or for inclusion in the Start menu's MFU list. More detail, you can refer this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378459(VS.85).aspx#exclusion_lists Hope that helps. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here. Leo Huang TechNet Community Support Thanks for your response but I've already seen that article. I'm afraid this isn't the issue - the taskbar has the 32-bit shortcut for Internet Explorer which we want to keep (i.e. we have no requirement to remove the taskbar item) and the 64-bit shortcut on the Start Menu isn't an MFU, it's a proper shortcut on the root of the "Start\All Programs" menu.Jonathan Conway | My blog: Conway's IT Blog | Twitter: jonconwayuk | Linkedin: Jonathan Conway MCITP: Enterprise Administrator MCP MCSE 2003 MCTS SCCM 2007, Windows 7 Config & Deploying VCP

Hi, I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Leo Huang TechNet Community Support

Hi Jonathan, Please have a test with following steps, thanks for your time. Delete the following to prevent the 64bit shortcuts from being created: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}\Stubpath Delete the following to prevent the 32bit shortcuts from being created: HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}\Stubpath Best Regards, Kevin NiPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Jonathan, Please have a test with following steps, thanks for your time. Delete the following to prevent the 64bit shortcuts from being created: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}\Stubpath Delete the following to prevent the 32bit shortcuts from being created: HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}\Stubpath Best Regards, Kevin Ni Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. I'd seen an article with this one before and when we tried the 64-bit key we found it caused issues with the 32-bit shortcuts! In the end we had to revert as the 64-bit key removed all of the IE9 entry points on the machine.Jonathan Conway | My blog: Conway's IT Blog | Twitter: jonconwayuk | Linkedin: Jonathan Conway MCITP: Enterprise Administrator MCP MCSE 2003 MCTS SCCM 2007, Windows 7 Config & Deploying VCP

Hi Jonathan, Could you please refer to following links for reference: Pin Items to the Start Menu or Windows 7 Taskbar via Script http://blogs.technet.com/b/deploymentguys/archive/2009/04/08/pin-items-to-the-start-menu-or-windows-7-taskbar-via-script.aspx How To: Customize the Windows 7 Start Menu and Taskbar Using unattend.xml http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2010/03/16/how-to-customize-the-windows-7-start-menu-and-taskbar-using-unattend-xml.aspx Thanks. Kevin NiPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Jonathan, Could you please refer to following links for reference: Pin Items to the Start Menu or Windows 7 Taskbar via Script http://blogs.technet.com/b/deploymentguys/archive/2009/04/08/pin-items-to-the-start-menu-or-windows-7-taskbar-via-script.aspx How To: Customize the Windows 7 Start Menu and Taskbar Using unattend.xml http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2010/03/16/how-to-customize-the-windows-7-start-menu-and-taskbar-using-unattend-xml.aspx Thanks. Kevin Ni Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Hi Kevin. I've seen both of these articles before unfortunately. They are both focused on "adding" items as opposed to removing them.<o:p></o:p> I guess what I'm really looking for is someone who has actually accomplished what I am trying to achieve and who can demonstrate exactly how they did it.<o:p></o:p> So far I am starting to think that this might not be possible to do.Jonathan Conway | My blog: Conway's IT Blog | Twitter: jonconwayuk | Linkedin: Jonathan Conway MCITP: Enterprise Administrator MCP MCSE 2003 MCTS SCCM 2007, Windows 7 Config & Deploying VCP

Jonathan, did you ever get this worked out? what problems were you having using Group Policy Preferences? how did you have it set up? i don't see that it initially deletes the shortcut when a user logs in to a machine for the first time, probably because the shortcut is created after the group policy preferences are run. but at the next refresh in ~90 minutes it should delete it, right? nobody's mentioned running a good old login script to delete the shortcut. i think login scripts run last but i could be wrong. del /F /Q "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Internet Explorer (64-bit).lnk"

Hi @ all! Just copy the string from HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}\Stubpath to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}\Stubpath or modify the last one as followed: "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ie4uinit.exe -UserIconConfig" Roman.

I just did it using group policy preferences User Configuration, Preferences,Windows Settings, Files Create a new file and for the action select Delete and for Delete Files use this %ProgramsDir%\Internet Explorer (64-bit).lnk

This does really work. Just be patient with the initial log in. The deletion of the 64bit link only happens after the second or subsequent log in. Thanks for the find richmond132! Cheers ~D

I have used small vbs script for that. On Error Resume Next dim filesys Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network") Set filesys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") strUserName = objNetwork.UserName strFilePath = "C:\Users\" & strUserName & "\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Internet Explorer (64-bit).lnk" filesys.CreateTextFile strFilePath, True If filesys.FileExists(strFilePath) Then filesys.DeleteFile strFilePath End If WScript.quit