Fixing Windows 7 jump lists

The other day I was puzzled when some of the Windows 7 jump lists stopped working properly. Right clicking on the Google Chrome icon in the taskbar, for instance, brought up the jump list, but left clicking on an item in the list did nothing. This behaviour also happened to some pinned programs in the Start menu.

I tried re-installing Chrome, but that did nothing. A web search suggested changing the settings in the Customize Start Menu dialogue, but this had no effect. Then I found a site that mentioned a shell extensions as a cause - not an extension I had installed, but it got me thinking.

The only thing I had installed recently was a Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 that I'm reviewing. This comes with a backup tool from Memeo, which installs a shell extension; it adds a context menu (right-click) entry for easily selecting items for backup.

I tried uninstalling this (luckily it installed as a separate program item) and the problem was immediately fixed. So if you're having similar problems with jump lists, check what third-party tools have been added to the Explorer context menu and try removing them.

Shell extensions can sometimes play havoc with Windows 7's jump lists