Essentially a CRASH

I'm putting this in the Programs category, because almost none of my programs work. I'm not at all sure why FireFox is working.

I'm running XP Pro, SP3, recent updates on a T60p Lenovo Thinkpad. (Somewhere around a gig and a half speed)

I had just used a video converter to merge 4 AVI files into one. I don't remember exactly what I was doing next when I saw all my desktop icons go generic (now the Notepad icon.) I have a bunch of frequently used icons ringing the edges of the screen, plus I have 10 (9 generic) items in my quick launch row. The remaining original icon is for opening a folder of often used software (none of which work).

Next I noticed that all the shortcuts had been renamed as .lnk files.

Right away I rebooted, hoping that would solve the problem. It didn't. Everything looked the same.

I tried running something I knew was at a certain place and got a Dialog saying Windows didn't know how to run that particular executable and asking me to associate a program to run it. I had no idea if there was anything I should associate it with.

I have a clipsave.txt icon on the desktop with how-to tips stored in it. I was able to use "open with" to associate it with Notepad. Next I decided to have a peek at a .lnk file and set it to Notepad as well. Either I forgot to un-click the permanent setting or it ignored that I did, but now any former-shortcut/.lnk icon I click on opens in Notepad.

I haven't figured a way to un-set it.

I have played around clicking on this and that and a very few of the icons have "reclaimed" their original icons. As I post this there are proper Firefox icons in the task bar. Only three icons showed up on the system tray, "Safely remove hardware," the power indicator (AC) and "Local Area Connection" showing my cable modem icon.

Some things bring up an error saying Windows doesn't know how to run explorer.exe.

"My Computer" seems to work. "My Network Places" seems to work - everything in it opens to at least one level. If I go through "My Network Places" I can navigate around (using explorer.exe of course) using icons here and there that are effective - but no shortcuts will work. The recycle bin seems to work.

Clicking any .url, .htm or .html files I can get to, call up Firefox successfully.

I can get to the control panel through the start icon and Settings. Anything there that is run by shortcuts is useless. Several things get one saying it doesn't know how to run rundll32.exe. Something somewhere else probably does.

"start" -> "programs" opens the programs list, but everything is converted to .lnk's.

It appears that stuff will run by associations but nothing will run directly.

Well....

Are there any steps I can take short of "Recovery" (better known as destroy everything you've done for years) - which may not even work now.

BTW, I've been trying to set up some kind of backup arrangement for a long time, but I have never gotten an alternate boot set up and, of course, I can't even get to the backup/restore "department."

JimL

 

I think you have just lost your file associations. Which should not be that difficult to fix.
Check Control Panel>Folder Options then on the File Types tab scroll down a bit to for example "BKF" and see if it says "Windows Backup File" next to it. Do the next 5-6 visible Extensions also have descriptions next to them?

 

You can also try as a test for one file type:

Start>Run>type in cmd
in the command line box that opens copy/paste assoc.lnk=lnkfile then press <enter>
See if it fixes your shortcuts so that they work.

 

Here is also a site that has reg files to fix xp file associations.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

 

Thanks. All the associations are still listed.

JimL

 

Errr... I may be mistaken in saying they are all listed. I _think_ there have always been a number of items at the top of the list that have NONE listed under the Extension heading. At any rate there are 32 of them now. Should there be none of them?

JimL

 

Hmm, I see some of the fixes listed are in the top 32 that show extensions listed as NONE. I'll see if I can download the ZIPs and then if I can get them to execute.

Thanks

JimL

 

Well, using the lnk and exe reg files I got almost everything working! Thanks a heap guys.

I do have at least one problem still. I have a couple desktop shortcuts leading to DOS programs. They now show PIF extensions and do not work, but there is nothing about PIF files in the list of reg zips. I can go into the folders showing the executables and run them from there, so I know they will work some way. Can you enlighten me about PIF files and PIF file failures?

I see the PIF entries for the two programs, but am far from knowledable about registry manipulations.

JimL

 

PIF is apparently a specific type of shortcut for DOS files running in a Windows environment. I don't see any registry fixes for that type either. I think the first thing to try since you have fixed both .lnk and .exe associations is to delete the current .pif shortcut and recreate it by right-clicking on the DOS file and selecting create shortcut. See if the new shortcut works.

 

Well, HORSEFEATHERS!

I don't know what happened but now I have the same problem only different.

Everything was fine for a while. The associations (shortcuts) seem to be OK because the icons are right and named right (not with .lnk); but when I click on a desktop icon (including in Quick launch) I get some version of the following error with only the filename varying:

[path]\ mozilla firefox.lnk is not a valid Win32 application.

I've run the LNK registry fix twice with no effect. I've run the EXE fix with no effect. I've searched my system drive for any file with filename.lnk in it and come up empty. I've searched the registry for the same thing and discovered removing the .lnk from entries does nothing.

Also I've tried restoring a registry file from a couple weeks ago and nothing appeared to change - except that running a registry scan finds "errors" it didn't find in the un-restored registry.

If I check the properties of the shortcuts they all show the proper naming, that is, no .lnk's appear in them. If it is an executable it shows an .exe extension and the proper path. If it is a folder it shows no extension at all of course. Yet in all cases I get the error about filename.lnk is not valid. Or maybe I should say shortcutname.lnk. I can't figure where it comes from.

I have some drive shortcuts on the desktop such as C-HD (c:\), and they failed. I ran the Drive Fix and got no change. Where on earth is the .lnk error coming from if not in any files nor in the registry? I suppose it is somewhere in code rather than text. But that would seem to say it has always been there and thus point to some other issue.

I hope someone has a clue, because I'm totally stumped.

JimLL

 

Do you have system restore running? Going back a day or so would probably fix things if it is an option. [I'm not sure how you are going back a few weeks in the registry but if you are using a CCleaner backup those usually only save changes not the entire registry.]

****
Shortcuts and .lnk files are the same thing. The .lnk extension is just always hidden even if you have show extensions enabled.

Try copying this text assoc.lnk=lnkfile
then click Start, Run and type CMD A Command Prompt window will open. Right click in this Window and select Paste. Then press Enter. See if it has any effect.

 

I've always had Restore turned on for my system drive, but it never works. When I pick any restore point it goes through all the motions, saying during shutdown that it is changing files, etc., but upon reboot I get a message saying nothing happened. I've asked how to fix it many times in many places. People say it is simply useless. If you have better information I'd love to hear it. When I first got XP Pro years ago it worked for a year or so then quit. One guy insisted that using a registry cleaner threw it out of kilter. Maybe it lasted until I first got a registry cleaner.

Shortcuts and .lnk files: I sort of think of my desktop icons as shortcuts and the LNK files as what makes them "tick." Like my house water pump. The motor makes the actual pump "tick", but they are, as you say, actually one thing.

My horse feathers have turned into whoopee! The assoc line you gave me fixed the new problem.

Thanks a heap. Given that my computer experience started at middle age before the Tandy Model 1 first came out (16Kb IC chip memory?) you can guess I'm not as sharp as I used to be.

I'd like information on the registry restoration thing. I opened the cleaner (PC Tools' Registry Mechanic) and got up the registry backup list. Many things listed were only a few K in length. I went back far enough to find one that was over 300Kb long. Is an actual registry file longer than that? I sort of think so, given the time regedit searches can take.

Thanks again

JimLL

 

After 6 or 8 hours of googling I found a .PIF conversation going on about Win2K. It referred to a registry entry near the top of the file in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT where there were a bunch of file extensions listed. Someone who sounded knowledgeable said the .pif entry should have a value of piffile in the Default position.

I looked and there was _no_ .pif entry at all. I constructed one and put pffile in the Default slot, whereupon my DOS programs came back to life. This 7 decade old codger is feeling pretty good about himself!

Thanks all.

JimLL

 

I thought I gave you that one already. My mistake. Save this list in case you find anything else missing in the future. http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_fileassoc.txt

I thought about referring you to this link but I have never used the program and can't say exactly what it does. Kaspersky is a good anti-virus program so the site is safe but it doesn't specify what OS it is intended to be used on. Probably all flavors of Windows. http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/cleanautorun

 

Yeah, I thought I had applied it before but apparently not. Unless I applied it before that stage of the problem stream I've had happened.

I have all of the fixes stored away.

JimLL