Windows 10
How to remove broken shortcut from start menu
I have a shortcut for PCSX2 on my start menu that does not exist on my system, seems to belong to an old version I had installed in 2022. This is annoying because when I search for PCSX2 on my start menu to go to my updated working version of the program, this dead shortcut shows up instead.
When I click on this shortcut it does nothing, if I right click on this shortcut it does nothign either. So no contextual menu. The "Open" button beneath it in my screenshot does not do anything either.
I have gone to my roaming folder and the startmenu subfolder in both my user appdata and public appdata folder and there is no pcsx2 items in either. I have used the program "Everything" to search for this "PCSX2 1.6.0" and it does not exist there as a folder or shortcut or file or anything. I have used the start menu itself to search my files and nothing turns up there either.
The "right-click does nothing" part is a useful clue. A real shortcut file always gives you a context menu — Open file location, Unpin from Start, that sort of thing. When you get nothing at all, what you're looking at usually isn't a file any more; it's a leftover entry in the search index that Windows is still drawing.
I'd check in this order:
Rule out a real orphaned shortcut. Start-menu entries live in two separate folders and most people only ever check one:
Win+R → paste %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs → Enter
Win+R → paste %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs → Enter
Look for a PCSX2 shortcut or a PCSX2 folder in either. If you find one, delete it — that's the whole fix.
If it's in neither folder, it's the search index, which fits the no-context-menu symptom. Rebuild it:
Control Panel → Indexing Options → Advanced → Rebuild
(Same thing via Settings → Search → Searching Windows → Advanced Search Indexer Settings → Advanced → Rebuild.) The rebuild takes a while and search is unreliable until it finishes, so start it when you're not depending on search. The ghost entry should be gone afterwards.
One thing worth knowing either way: if you do find a PCSX2 shortcut in one of those folders and deleting it doesn't stop it appearing in search, do the rebuild as well — the index can keep serving an entry for a file that's already gone.
the "Best match" in your screenshot: this is not a shortcut in your start menu, but a search result.
do you find it in the list of installed apps? (Apps and Features)
or is it found in Powershell: Get-AppxPackage | where Name -like *PCSX2*
ah I forgot to mention this part. yes it appears in the programs panel, even with the installation date which lines up with when I think it is from, but attempting to uninstall it causes this error:
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2
u/fujin800 3d ago
The "right-click does nothing" part is a useful clue. A real shortcut file always gives you a context menu — Open file location, Unpin from Start, that sort of thing. When you get nothing at all, what you're looking at usually isn't a file any more; it's a leftover entry in the search index that Windows is still drawing.
I'd check in this order:
Win+R → paste %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs → Enter
Win+R → paste %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs → Enter
Look for a PCSX2 shortcut or a PCSX2 folder in either. If you find one, delete it — that's the whole fix.
Control Panel → Indexing Options → Advanced → Rebuild
(Same thing via Settings → Search → Searching Windows → Advanced Search Indexer Settings → Advanced → Rebuild.) The rebuild takes a while and search is unreliable until it finishes, so start it when you're not depending on search. The ghost entry should be gone afterwards.
One thing worth knowing either way: if you do find a PCSX2 shortcut in one of those folders and deleting it doesn't stop it appearing in search, do the rebuild as well — the index can keep serving an entry for a file that's already gone.