Disassociated .lnk files

[lrawlins]

Today's adventure has all the .lnk files on our Stake Clerk's machine being disassociated from where they should link.

Something evil has gotten to the machine and I wonder if anyone else has had this happen and what the solutions are.

My first thought was to boot in safe mode and run system restore but even in safe mode the files are disassociated.

Is there any utility I can run to put things back in order or is my best solution to reformat the drive and reinstall windows?

Thanks,

[russellhltn]

Are you saying that the computer no longer recognizes a "lnk" as a shortcut, or that the shortcuts are no good? Usually the problem is that the file no longer points to the target because the target has moved. Perhaps moved due to careless mousing. All it takes is to accidentally move the mouse when clicking on something and the computer sees that as a "drag and drop" instead if a "open" command.

[lrawlins]

It no longer recongizes any ".lnk" file.

All shortcuts are changed to generic icons. Even navigating to the control panel nothing works.

Likely something has messed the registry. All I know about the registry is it is a quick to mess up a machine.

[russellhltn]

My best suggestion is to Google for an answer. Failing a quick fix, I think a reformat and reload of the computer is in order. Just because you fix one problem, doesn't mean there isn't more.

[Aczlan]

My best suggestion is to Google for an answer. Failing a quick fix, I think a reformat and reload of the computer is in order. Just because you fix one problem, doesn't mean there isn't more.

I agree. You need to find what caused it as having a keylogger or similar running on a clerk computer would be bad.

To fix the .lnk problem on an XP machine, see http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-files/lnk-files-do-not-open-in-windows-xp/d8673321-5d83-4794-bab1-d90cb075ddd4

Aaron Z

[lrawlins]

I took the easy way out and reformatted the drive then installed Win 7.

After that it was run a whole lot of updates.

This is my first experience with Windows 7. Just a wee bit different from XP.

Bye

[Aczlan]

I took the easy way out and reformatted the drive then installed Win 7.
After that it was run a whole lot of updates.
This is my first experience with Windows 7. Just a wee bit different from XP.
Bye

Best option IMO. No question as to what may or may not be lurking on the PC that way.

Aaron Z