If I delete any files off my desktop they disappear just as they should. If I stop and restart Winstep Extreme they reappear in the sense that they cannot be deleted again as they are not really there (does that make any sense?)but if I restart my pc they are gone again, usually for good this time. I dont really want to restart my pc everytime I delete something and sometimes I have to shutdown Winstep Extreme to get to my original desktop but really would like to delete files once and they are gone.
Does anybody else have any knowledge of this behavior or how to fix it please?

Unfortunately no, that does not make any sense to me - Winstep does not magically 'bring back' files you have deleted.

Can you please be more descriptive to what you are doing, what you are deleting, and what exactly happens and HOW it happens, please?

Any files, but mainly images that I have on my desktop when deleted return after restarting Winstep. If I cut and move they dont return but if I delete them they or rather their icons return to my desktop which requires a reboot to lose them. I dont know how to explain it any better than that other than the screenshot I have posted.

Guess it's going to remain a mystery then, sorry.

I don't understand this. Do you have Winstep hiding your Desktop icons and that's why you're quitting Winstep? Or do you have some part of Winstep completely covering your Desktop?

If you just want to show/hide Desktop icons, in my NextSTART menu (which is relatively default), there's a "Hide/Show Desktop Icons" in the Settings sub-menu.

No, sometimes I need to get to my Windows taskbar, sometimes the shelf disappears so I have to quit Extreme and restart it to get my shelf back.
I dont normally have files on my desktop unless I want easy access when editing images.

Hi

I was able to reproduce the issue:

1. Create a file on the desktop - make sure "hide desktop icons is unchecked"

2. Delete the file

3. Stop Nexus

4. You will see the file is now present on the Desktop. Trying to delete it brings the windows dialogue of "the item cannot be found"

5. Hitting "F5" resolves this and the file is gone


Jorge I dunno what exactly does Winstep do to cause this but IMHO this is bad


Reproduced on Nexus Ultimate Beta 20.4

Thankyou, I will remember and no doubt use a lot, the F5 button.

lol I hope you were sarcastic

This is some serious bug in terms of infrastructure (how Winstep interferes with basic Windows functions) which could potentially lead to OS corruption for all we know

Hope Jorge fixes this asap

I've tried to get this to happen multiple times. Every single time, the file stayed deleted. Let's clear up some things.

1. Do you have things going to the Recycle Bin? (See screenshot below.)
2. You say, "Delete the file," but there are multiple ways to do so. Are you:
   
   1. dragging it to the Desktop's Recycle Bin,
   2. dragging it to Winstep's Recycle Bin,
   3. selecting it and smacking your keyboard's Delete button,
   4. right-clicking it and choosing Delete, or
   5. another method I didn't think of
3. What anti-virus software are you using?
4. Does it make a difference if the anti-virus is disabled when you're trying to delete the file?

Ok, thanks Ryuk for coming up with a way to reproduce it, I wasn't able to understand what was happening but now I think I have a pretty good idea.

First off let me start by saying the following: this is NOT a critical issue and CANNOT lead to file system corruption. It's merely a COSMETIC issue.

Now that this is out of the way, here is what I think is happening (but I haven't tried reproducing it here yet and Ric apparently wasn't able to reproduce it either): when you set the Winstep application to hide the desktop, you are effectively hiding a *window* which overlays the desktop background. This is the layer that shows the desktop icons.

So, I think that when you delete an item in the actual desktop, this window is told by the OS to refresh itself (which would basically clear it and 're-read' all the available desktop icons) but since it is hidden it does not do this.

I am not sure if this behavior of not refreshing itself when hidden is new to Windows 10 or has always been there, all I know is that in 20 years nobody ever complained, probably because most don't usually go around deleting desktop icons via the Winstep application and then exiting it (the Winstep application is the type of application that is ALWAYS running until your reboot).

So, when you exit the Winstep application, if the feature to hide desktop icons is enabled, just before exiting the Winstep application make the desktop icons layer window VISIBLE again. I assume that since it was not refreshed because it was hidden, then you can still see the deleted icons in it. This does not mean the files themselves still exist - which is why they cannot be deleted again and why there is no risk of doing something bad to the file system either.

Merely cosmetic issue, as I said. I can see if sending a command to the desktop window to refresh itself after making it visible again fixes the issue. Assuming I can reproduce it here, of course.

[quote="DesertDwarf"]I've tried to get this to happen multiple times. Every single time, the file stayed deleted. Let's clear up some things.

1. Do you have things going to the Recycle Bin? (See screenshot below.)
2. You say, "Delete the file," but there are multiple ways to do so. Are you:
   
   1. dragging it to the Desktop's Recycle Bin,
   2. dragging it to Winstep's Recycle Bin,
   3. selecting it and smacking your keyboard's Delete button,
   4. right-clicking it and choosing Delete, or
   5. another method I didn't think of
3. What anti-virus software are you using?
4. Does it make a difference if the anti-virus is disabled when you're trying to delete the file?

Yes deleted items go to my recycle bin although the size allocated is a lot less than yours.
I didnt know Winstep had a recycle bin or do you mean via their shortcut?
I delete the files saved on my desktop by right clicking and selecting Delete and I dont "smack" any of my keys.
My AV is MalwareBytes and the file icon returns with or without M/B activated.

I have another thought. What if you have a File Explorer window showing the current Desktop contents and you delete a file from the Desktop your usual way (from the right-click menu). Does File Explorer show the file being removed when it should be or does it wait until you refresh the Desktop?

Also, assuming Desktop Icons are not hidden, does hitting F5 before exiting Winstep make a difference?

Winstep has a Recycle Bin dock module. It interfaces and interacts with the Windows Recycle Bin. That way, if you have your Desktop icons hidden, you can still interact with it.

(Sorry if I'm being annoying. I'm just trying to help you guys and Jorge get to the bottom of this mysterious mysteriousness.)

Ok, seems I have not been paying attention lately. The 'Hide desktop icons' setting in Winstep is DISABLED?

Forget my theory then lol.

Anyway, I finally tried following the steps to reproduce, and no matter what I did I could not see anything abnormal: copying a file from another folder to the desktop or directly creating a new text file on the desktop then deleting it and exiting Winstep Xtreme, all that still did not magically bring the file 'back'.

What version of Windows 10 are you guys running? Still on 1909 here.

Something else that occurred to me is that Winstep Xtreme here is reserving screen space for the taskbar, shelf at the bottom, etc, so when I exit it, due to the change in the reserved screen space area the desktop is automatically refreshed, which might explain why I wasn't seeing nothing abnormal.

So, I tried running Nexus Ultimate with the Shelf floating (so it did not change the reserved screen area), added a new text file to the desktop, deleted it via the right click menu, exited Nexus Ultimate... the file remained deleted.

Did exactly the same thing but this time copying an image file from another folder, deleted it by selecting the icon and pressing the DEL key, exited Nexus Ultimate... the file remained deleted.

So I definitely am unable to reproduce it here.