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Windows 2000

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5 replies

by wevans

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all icons on the desktop changed to "wordpad" icons and like opening IE it just comes up to a wordpad document and a bunch of garbled text, all icons are like this, try re-loading the programs and it comes back to wordpad after a re-boot. 400 points for the right answer!!

5 replies

by dklippert

Here are four suggestions:

Locate and delete the ShellIconCache folder. It has a hidden attribute.

Use TweakUI to re-establish associations

Upgrade IE

Search for a virus

by semi-pro 64

I would check for a virus, you maybe missing .exe files. Check to see if your programs work by going to the exe. within root folders. For example to check to see if you can open Mircosoft word, go you your harddrive and browse to the programs files folder, mircosoft office folder, and do a search for *.exe. If you had or have a virus, they can waste your .exe and thus the shortcuts on your desktop don't work. You will have to reinstall on the programs affected by this problem. Windows would default to open these shortcuts with wordpad if the exe are missing.
If for some reason this doesn't work, you may want to check to see if the all the files are being opened by wordpad. To check this, go to my computer, tools, folder option, go to the file tab, look at the file and see if the file is opening with the right program.

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