In that file - is it excluding all exe's and links on the desktop?
aren't you telling it to exclude any *.lnk and *.exe from the desktop and startmenu?
I'm assuming that should we want to only delete shortcuts we just remove that *.exe or comment the line out?
<unconditionalExclude>
<objectSet>
<!-- exclude blank links on the desktop-->
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%\* [*.msi]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%\* [*.exe]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%\* [*.lnk]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%\* [*.lnk2]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY%\* [*.msi]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY%\* [*.exe]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY%\* [*.lnk]</pattern>
<pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY%\* [*.lnk2]</pattern>