windows shotcut file??

[catman42]

I need help.

how can I replace program to load my files . This is on windows 7
When I try load firefox for example I get A message saying I need a program to open this with.

all my programs on my desk top are doing this.

thanks.

 

[nofrill]

Looks like all your desktop shortcuts to your programs are screwed up.

What did you do? Have you recently installed or upgraded to Win7? Did you replace your hard drive? Did you clone your old drive to a new one?

It may just be a simple matter of re-directing all your shortcuts to the appropriate programs, but it depends on what you have done to cause the problem in the first place.

 

[catman42]

Thanks for replying nofrill

you hit it on the head, I did a download of an up grade of a apple program I think this is what happened . Your suggestion about redirecting the shortcuts is the problem

 

[catman42]

nofrill

can you explain how to do this

thanks catman42

 

[mrgreek]

Catman42 ... Creating a shortcut is very easy. I'm using Win XP, but I would imagine it would be the same for Windows 7. This is how you create a shortcut for Firefox:

1. Go to the directory where your Firefox program is located. In that directory there should be a program called firefox.exe. Right click that file and select Create Shortcut. The shortcut will be placed in the same directory. All you need to do is simply drag it to your desktop.

You need to do this for all your programs

I just found another way of creating a shortcut....click START...then PROGRAMS...highlight the program ... then right click...then select Create Shortcut.....drag shortcut to your desktop

 

[nofrill]

There are several ways to do this, but I think mrgreek's way is probably the least confusing one. (The fastest way is simply updating the existing screwed-up shortcuts, but if you are not comfortable searching and navigating through Windows it may be easy to get lost)

Remember if you create a whole new set of desktop icons, you need to delete the old ones.

In fact you don't need to create the shortcuts in the folder of the program then drag and drop it to desktop - right click on the icon of the program .exe (executable) file -> Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut)

You also need to know what the .exe files for each program are, and sometime it is not obvious as firefox.exe (eg. MS Word is WINWORD.exe). I dont have an ideal way to find them, but if you had all those programs installed before the desktop shortcuts are screwed up, you can find the names of the .exe files for each program by doing the following:

Right-click on the faulty desktop shortbut -> Properties -> it will show you the path of the shortcut leading to the .exe itself. Note the name of the .exe as well as the path (eg. C:\program files\microsoft office\office12\WINWORD.EXE). When you use Windows Explorer (or "Computer") to get into list view (click one of the little icons in the top right corner of the window frame (I think it is the one closest to the left) to select "list") of your computer, you should be able to trace down the tree to find the .exe file so that you can create a desktop shortcut.

If the shortcut link is screwed up, at least you know the name of the .exe file and the general locale (eg. WINWORD.exe can be found in a folder under something like "microsoft office"), which is going to help in your search.

If your faulty desktop shortcuts are really screwed up, another place you can try the relevant information is Start -> All programs, where you can find the access to the folders and various program files. You can do the same thing by right-clicking on the name of the program -> Properties to see the path of the shortcut link.

Hope this helps.

 

[catman42]

thanks nofrill I will give it a try, windows 7 is new to me so it will take a while find my way around.