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Unwanted Icons

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by jtech9_2000 1 view

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Here's the scenario I was given by a friend, I'm not sure if we have enough info but my suggestion is that the programs have not been unzipped after backups were reinstalled:

My hard drive crashed & had to be replaced. The computer tech for the school (I work at a school bus garage) installed it & put all the info we had backed up into the computer, as well as necessary programs, etc. However, she put very little on my desktop. So I went into programs & put shortcuts that I use on the desktop. That is when I noticed that all had a winzip icon on top of the correct icon. Word, outlook, yahoo messenger, dial up connection, templates, Thomas Built Bus Help, qws3270 (program that allows me to connect with state DOT), TIMS (Transportation information Management System) all have a WinZip icon on top. I am not the only one to use the computer, so I am unsure as to what exactly happened. I do know that you can't change or delete the icon-the new icon has the WinZip icon on top, and I don'tbeleive it is a problem with WinZip- I think someone wanted to open a program & they somehow used the wrong one (WinZip) to open it. I checked with both of our computer people & they said they had no idea what to do. A friend who works with computers said to Join a club & see if anyone else had the same problem, so I did. Any ideas?

9 replies

by zlitocook

I am not sure what you are looking for. But the person who restored your hard drive did not save all. the links you are looking for are on the net. dont blame her, she is doing what she is told. Please contact me about restoring your files. They arestill there.

by jdkline

I'm not sure what you mean by "on top". Is the whole icon replaced with the WinZip icon or is a smaller version of the WinZip showing up over the icon, say in the lower left corner? If the former, I assume you have tried changing the icon by right-clicking on the icon selecting Properties... and clicking on Change Icon...
Do your shortcuts work? That is, if you double click on it, does the desired program actually start up? Have you tried reinstalling the programs? Accept my response andyou send you an email to will work on fixing your problem.

by mm212

A strange problem, so here's a strange answer. I've never seen this problem, but theoretically it could happen:

Someone managed to change the file associatation for .lnk files.

As I typed up til now, I thought "Easy! Just restore the file associates for .lnk files!" Well, I just attempted to change the association of a .lnk file. Strange thing is, I can't see how to do it.

I would try restoring your Windows registry from an older version. If using Windows 95, boot into DOS, cd Windows,then do the following:
attrib system.dat -s -r -h
attrib user.dat -s -r -h
attrib system.da0 -s -r -h
attrib user.da0 -s -r -h
ren system.dat system.old
ren user.dat user.old
ren system.da0 system.dat
ren use.da0 user.dat
attrib system.dat +s +h
attrib user.dat +s +h

If using Windows 98, boot to DOS, go to C:\Windows\sysbckup. Do a dir to find a rbxxx.cab (where x are numbers, typically 001, 002 etc. )file dated just before the problem popped up, then do the following:

extract rbxxx.cab /e c:\windows\temp
cd..
attrib system.dat -s -r -h
attrib user.dat -s -r -h
ren system.dat system.old
ren user.dat user.old
cd temp
move *.dat c:\windows
cd..
attrib system.dat +s +h
attrib user.dat +s +h

Good luck!

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