URL Start menu entry missing on Windows 10 although installed

Question

I have a "normal" Setup and a "Pro" Setup of the same application. They have many things in common, so I use an

#include "CommonThings.iss"

Both versions can be installed in parallel, because they have a different AppId.

In the common definition, I have

[Icons]
Name: {group}\Online documentation; Filename: "http://example.com/"

but only one of them shows up in the Windows Start menu:

Looking at the file system under

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Example
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Example Pro

the Online Documentation Internet Shortcut is available for both programs.

To me, it seems like a bug of Windows, since I don't do any fancy stuff with my installer, just copy some files.

I have tried:

• I am not suffering from the 512 start menu items limitation, since I test my installer on a clean Windows 10 with no other apps installed (except the ones that come with Windows itself).
• The problem persists after a restart

Is there a fix possible in Inno Setup for this kind of issue?

Answer 1

I can reproduce your problem too on Windows 10 (not on Windows 7).

Windows 10 seems to filter identical URLs form the Start menu.

A solution seems to be to make the URLs unique, e.g. by:

[Icons]
Name: {group}\Online documentation; \
    Filename: "https://www.example.com/?uniq={#SetupSetting("AppId")}"

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Though note that it's against Windows 10 guidelines to put more than one shortcut per application to the Start Menu. Links to open documentation and similar, should now be contained in the application itself only.