All of my shortcuts go to the same program and they all have the extension, .lnk.

Anonymous
2009-11-07T23:36:44+00:00

When I look at the table of file extensions I see a prticular program indicated, and that program is the program that starts up when I click on any shortcut.  I see no way of changing that so that when I click on Internet Explorer, for example, Internet Explorer comes up instead of the wrong program.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2009-11-14T10:36:17+00:00

Hi Mensard1,

I had the same problem. I solved it by downloading  http://www.creativelement.com/powertools/ and then running the program (from the directory, as none of my shortcuts were working) "File Type Doctor". When I selected ".lnk" in the extension list it said in the Actions in the Right Click Menu:

"(user choice override)" in red ... and

"Open"

I then removed the "(user choice override)" and that was it. All the shortcuts were working again, just like they used to.

Good luck,

Maikel

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-10-13T03:16:13+00:00

    I had the same problems all my shortcut had opened in photoshop even another exe programs, wmp, internet, explorer, spc companion, everything!!! but, I found the problems and I could fix it, they are like before

    first- you should open START, click in SEARSH PROGRAMS and you need to write  REGEDIT , push enter or click on, now, you should open some folders and sub- folders

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER (next) Software (next) Microsoft (next) Windows (next) CurrentVersion (next) Explorer (next) FileExts (next) lnk

    look the forder it's name is user UserChoice and delete, that folder is the problems that you made, closed, and reset windows, all is going to change like before

    I going to repeat

    1 start (click)

    2 searh programs (click)

    3 Regedit (you need to write this and open it)

    4 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.lnk (you need to find these sub-folder clicking)

    5 UserChoice (you need to find and delete this folder that's the problem that you made)

    6 closed, and restart windows

    all you shortcut and exe program going to change like before (originals file)

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  3. Anonymous
    2009-11-10T00:43:56+00:00

    Hi Ajay K,

    I have a closely related problem and therefore did the scannow in the sytem file checker. This returned "Windows Response Protection did not find aany integrity violations. My problem is that I used the "Open with.." button and changed a file to open with Windows Photo Viewer. This turned into a nightmare because I did not notice that the file was a .LNK file. Now all my shortcuts (.LNK files) won't work as Widows Photo Viewer is not designed to open these shortcut files.

    I have an exactly similar computer and therefore looked to see which application that uses to open .LNK files and it show "Application Unknown".

    I know pretty will the time that I made the "mistake" and have searched the event log. This seems to indicate that I made a change to the file bootstat.dat at that time. I could restore that file to the version which existed a few days earlier.

    Would that be the right thing to do?

    All the above is in Windows 7.

    Regards

    Mensard1

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  4. Anonymous
    2009-11-08T23:21:37+00:00

    Hi eldonsellers,

    Welcome to Microsoft answers forums!

    The LNK file type is associated with windows itself. A shortcut file is a pointer to an .EXE file somewhere on your system. When you click on the shortcut its like clicking on the .EXE file and the associated program should start and run. Sometimes .LNK files will stop working. This can be because the underlying .EXE association has been broken by something (often by some form of anti-malware program improperly changing the registry) or the association in the registry can become corrupted.

    I would suggest you try the following steps:

    S**tep 1:**The system file checker (SFC) utility allows administrators to perform a scan of all protected resources to verify that they are the correct version. If SFC should find any incorrect versions in any of these protected resources, SFC will replace them with the correct versions.

    You can always run a sfc scan on the windows vista computer. To run a sfc scan follow the steps below:

    a. Click on start and in the start search bar type cmd, right click on the command prompt icon in the programs area and then click on run as administrator.

    b. At the command prompt type sfc /scannow and then press enter.

    Step 2: Run an online scan for any threat and try to fix them

    http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/cleanup.htm

    Thanks and Regards:

    Ajay K

    Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

    Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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