Question : Error says "Improper shortcut registry settings. Shortcut links cannot be restored."

I had never seen this error before, but then two users have gotten it in the last 24 hours. One said he was shutting down when it popped up and the other was launching an application from the desktop. The full error text is:

"Improper shortcut registry settings. Shortcut links cannot be restored. Defaults used." After hitting okay, there was another message about Overwriting the registry settings with a "Yes" or "No." response. (Sorry I didn't get the exact text). Anyone seen this before? Is it anything to worry about or symptomatic of other issues?

Answer : Error says "Improper shortcut registry settings. Shortcut links cannot be restored."

Well to be honest the thinking in science circles is that things happen never, once or all the time.  
Translated that means something is either impossible, a one time and only one time thing, or a regular thing.  This sounds like a one time.  There may have been a device sending too much traffic across the line, some other type of interferance (work on the electric grid within 3 blocks in Manhatten has caused me issues)

Personally unless you can recreate it or it happens again I would chalk it up to a weird thing.  It really just sounds like the roaming profiles didn't get the response they expected and freaked, Micro$oft has a very limited number of error messages so windows chooses the most approprate, not always correct.