Once this is done you can confirm that the actual lnk security properties update according to what is set in GPO.
This setting sets the security permissions of the lnk to whatever you select in the GPO settings. The path here should match the path \\program data\microsoft\. Entered the path starting with %AllUsersProfile%\microsoft\. Once I knew that, I could control it using computer configuration ->policies->windows settings->security settings->file system. The trick for me was identifying exactly where the files being copied is coming from. There are lots of posts out there on how to do it using GPO but they were not working 100% and in this post the paths did not exactly match for me for some reason. Thanks for the excellent post! This helped me to find another solution using GPO. To stop the "Windows PowerShell.lnk" and "Server Manager.lnk" shortcuts from getting pinned to the start menu on all users, simply delete these icons from the All Users profile under "C:\ProgramData" from the following locations: How to Prevent the icons from getting Populated to User Profiles "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar\Windows PowerShell.lnk" "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\System Tools\Windows PowerShell.lnk" The "Windows PowerShell.lnk" file gets copied by the user profile creation From: Remote Desktop Shortcut in Windows 10: Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) is also known as Remote Desktop allows a user to control and connect to a remote computer over a network. Right-click on your desktop and select New > Shortcut. Places a snapshot of the client's entire desktop area on the clipboard To shut down or restart the remote computer, either bring up the Windows Security dialog, or use Task Manager. "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar\Server Manager.lnk" From the taskbar, type Remote Desktop Connection on the Search box. In Windows 10 When you right-click a device icon in Devices and Printers, you can select from a list of tasks that vary depending on the capabilities.
"C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools\Server Manager.lnk" The Windows-10 Device Manager Desktop Shortcut allows fast access to Device Manager from the Desktop, for example, to see if all the drivers are install. The "Server Manager.lnk" file gets copied by the user profile creation From: The user profile creation process creates Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar folder as part of the login then copies a bunch of "lnk" shortcut files from the "All Users Profile". This process appears to be hardcoded into Windows Server 2012 and executed upon creating a new user profile. So how do these icons get created in the users profile and where do they come from?