All my Shortcuts suddenly stopped working

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Goodwin
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark Goodwin

This is a strange one.
I can no longer open any of my programs by double-clicking the shortcut
from the desktop. NEITHER can I open them from going through the Start
menu. The only way is to trigger the programs to open in some other
way, such as telling my Google Notifier to go to my inbox - this causes
Firefox to open and that's how I have to open firefox from now on.

So... I've lost of functionality of my shortcuts.
Can someone suggest a fix?

The one and only thing I may be able to offer as a reason why this
happened is that I "installed" a .reg file that was designed to stop
windows XP from displaying the "My Pictures" folder in Thumbnails by
default. The desired effect was achieved, My Pictures now opens in
"list" view.

Any tips appreciated
thanks
mark
 
Mark Goodwin said:
This is a strange one.
I can no longer open any of my programs by double-clicking the
shortcut from the desktop. NEITHER can I open them from going
through the Start menu. The only way is to trigger the programs to
open in some other way, such as telling my Google Notifier to go
to my inbox - this causes Firefox to open and that's how I have to
open firefox from now on.

So... I've lost of functionality of my shortcuts.
Can someone suggest a fix?

The one and only thing I may be able to offer as a reason why this
happened is that I "installed" a .reg file that was designed to
stop windows XP from displaying the "My Pictures" folder in
Thumbnails by default.
Click to expand...

Yup. Hopefully you can go back to a restore point prior to that.

There might be another fix, but I don't know offhand.

I think links have a hidden file extension LNK but the association
is not repaired the same way as most file extensions.

Good luck.
 
thanks guys
Here's some good info to help with the diagnosis:

If I actually go to my C: drive and the program files and then find the
..exe icon that way, the program opens fine. It is just that when I drag
& drop a shortcut to my desktop, it will not then open. So I know the
shortcut path is correct but it still won't open.

I've added an external HDD recently but that doesn't seem to be causing
any drive letter changes to my C: drive or to the shortcut paths.

Thanks
Mark
 
If I were you, I would ask in one of the Microsoft Windows groups. The
problem is rare but it happens, they will know how to fix it.

You can also search the USENET archives in subject "shortcuts don't
work".

Here is one result.
"Windows shortcuts don't work"
Here is a reply.
Message-ID: <e5tHqK0OFHA.2252 TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl>
....
3. File Association Fixes:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm
....

Then look for "LNK" and "shortcut". You will find a very small
download that claims to fix shortcut associations in the registry.

Good luck.
 
Instead of dragging and dropping, right click the .exe files and select
Send To / Desktop. That will set up the proper file execute references.
 
Ian D said:
Instead of dragging and dropping, right click the .exe files and
select Send To / Desktop. That will set up the proper file execute
references.
Click to expand...

Mark Goodwin wrote:
"NEITHER can I open them from going through the Start menu"
 
Mark said:
This is a strange one.
I can no longer open any of my programs by double-clicking the shortcut
from the desktop. NEITHER can I open them from going through the Start
menu. The only way is to trigger the programs to open in some other
way, such as telling my Google Notifier to go to my inbox - this causes
Firefox to open and that's how I have to open firefox from now on.

So... I've lost of functionality of my shortcuts.
Can someone suggest a fix?

The one and only thing I may be able to offer as a reason why this
happened is that I "installed" a .reg file that was designed to stop
windows XP from displaying the "My Pictures" folder in Thumbnails by
default. The desired effect was achieved, My Pictures now opens in
"list" view.

Any tips appreciated
thanks
mark
Click to expand...

The first thing is, did you try restoring to a point before the problem?


I don't know if the .reg file is related since i can't see the entries in
it but there are a couple of things I can think of that might cause that
kind of problem. One is disk corruption, so do a disk scan. Corruption
might not show up as a 'ba' though and, in particular, look at the
directory names in the Documents and Settings folders, from there all the
way through to your name entry and it's subfolders. Point is, that's where
your desktop shortcuts are kept, as well as the menu entries, and strange
characters in the folder names can cause program launch to fail.

The path to a user's desktop should look like:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Desktop

A perhaps more likely event is if you somehow associated the hidden .lnk
extension with something so it's no longer interpreted as a program launch
link or the link associations themselves have become corrupted.

Here are a couple of things to look at. I have no idea if these work nor do
I 'recommend' them but it's a place for you to look and consider options.

http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBS/TIP9200/rh9201.htm

http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBS/TIP9200/rh9202.htm

If you do decide to try some registry changes, back it up up first.
 
The first thing is, did you try restoring to a point before the
problem?
Click to expand...

There must be an echo in here.
A perhaps more likely event is if you somehow associated the
hidden .lnk extension with something so it's no longer interpreted
as a program launch link or the link associations themselves have
become corrupted.
Click to expand...

Very good David.
Here are a couple of things to look at. I have no idea if these
work nor do I 'recommend' them but it's a place for you to look
and consider options.

http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBS/TIP9200/rh9201.htm

http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBS/TIP9200/rh9202.htm

If you do decide to try some registry changes, back it up up
first.
Click to expand...

Or download a premade registry file to do the same thing.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm
 
John said:
There must be an echo in here.




Very good David.




Or download a premade registry file to do the same thing.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm
Click to expand...

That's not the same thing. Those just remake the associations for each of
those types of files but the one above restores the linking functionality
itself. I.E. Doesn't help to associate .zip with it's program if the system
doesn't know what to do with links.
 
David Maynard said:
That's not the same thing. Those just remake the associations for
each of those types of files but the one above restores the
linking functionality itself.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what it did when Mark Goodwin used it to solve his
problem.
I.E. Doesn't help to associate .zip with it's program if the
system doesn't know what to do with links.
Click to expand...

It would help but you can't do it for shortcuts through Windows
Explorer like you can with other file types/extensions.

Your solution was correct, I just provided an easier way to
implement that.
 
I went with John Doe's idea from yesterday and it worked perfectly.
Thanks guys :)
I appreciate your efforts
 
John said:
That's exactly what it did when Mark Goodwin used it to solve his
problem.




It would help but you can't do it for shortcuts through Windows
Explorer like you can with other file types/extensions.

Your solution was correct, I just provided an easier way to
implement that.
Click to expand...

I'm glad the 'simpler' solution solved his problem.

They do not, however, do the same thing as any inspection of the registry
entries will easily show.
 
Back
Top