Microsoft Defender for Endpoint ASR rule blamed for deleting desktop, taskbar and Start menu shortcuts
Users of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint have been experiencing what has been described as a "weird issue" that not only caused shortcuts to be deleted from the Start menu, desktop and taskbar, but also led to issues with Office apps.
The problem was traced to a flawed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint ASR (attack surface reduction) rule, and while Microsoft has now released a fix, this is not without problems of its own. Users are being warned that any shortcuts that have disappeared will need to be manually recreated.