Desktop shortcuts not working in Windows 7

[madangopal]

I am having a desktop computer at my home on which I have installed Windows 7 Pro SP1 operating system. My desktop consists of AMD X2 555 processor 3.20 GHz, 4 GB RAM. I was having problem accessing the site that uses JAVA. So I just tried to find out some solutions on Google and got to know that there might be some virus which might have done this so I scanned my entire desktop and was unable to find a bug. But the problem was still there in my system so I decided to do a system restore.

The system restore worked superbly but now I am unable to access my desktop shortcuts. Every time I click a shortcut it gives an error message as “Application Not Found”. This is bothering me as I am not so well worse with the system so I am just worried if I have done a mistake or if I do anything else it will make some more damage so kindly help me with this. I thank you in advance for the same.

[Chin-Mae]

Dont worry friend, Microsoft has already taken some pain in addressing this issue you can visit the link which I am providing you. Check this: Fix broken desktop shortcuts.

Here you will find “Fix it” which will fix broken desktops shortcuts and common system maintenance tasks. It will automatically diagnose and repair all the problems with not working desktop icons and synchronize the system clock when wrong time is displayed.

[Harnoor]

I am being using windows 7 from past 1 and half year now and have came across this issue twice in this period. For the first time even I used the “Fixit” Application and was pretty much satisfied with that, it really helps to restore all your desktop icons. But when I was trying to access it for the second time I had a terrible experience because of my slow internet connection.

Of course the issue was with my internet connection but I had to look for some different solution to fix this problem and thanks to Microsoft support I got to know how to fix this issue manually by myself. There are some steps to reset the registry sub key for the file association of the .exe file back to the default setting. Follow these below mentioned steps:

• Press “Ctrl+Shift+Esc”, this will open the Task Manager.
• Click “File”, press “ctrl” and then Click “New Task (Run)”. After pressing this a Command Prompt opens.
• On the Command Prompt type “notepad” and press Enter.
• Paste the following text into the Notepad:
  

  [-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.exe]
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.exe]
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.exe\OpenWithList]
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.exe\OpenWithProgids]
  "exefile"=hex(0):

• Click on “File” from the menu bar of the Note Pad and Click on “Save As”.
• Select “All Files” in Save As type list and then Name the file as Exe.reg
• Select “Unicode” in Encoding list. Save it and remember where you saved it.
• Open the Command Prompt window and type REG IMPORT (file path)Exe.reg and press Enter
• Click yes and then click OK as a response to the Registry Prompts.
• Log Off from your account and then log back.

You may have to restart the computer to restore the program icons to their original form. After the problem is resolved, delete the Exe.reg file so that it is not added back to the registry.