Windows 7 desktop icons converted into .lnk files

I am running Windows 7 on my computer. The problem with my computer is that all of my desktop icons have been converted into .lnk file. I don't know how it happened and I even do not know how to solve this problem. I have tried fiddling around the properties but didn't find anything solid that could fix the problem. If I try to click on these files to see what it is all about, I get the Media Player opening the file and it says the file type is unknown and so could not open this file. What is going on in my computer and is there any way to solve this problem?

A default program is the program that Windows uses when you open a particular type of file, such as a music file, an image, or a webpage. You can change the programs you want Windows to use, by default.

• Open Default Programs by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Default Programs.
• Click Associate a file type or protocol with a program.
• Click the file type or protocol that you want the program to act as the default for.
• Click Change program.
• Click the program that you want to use as the default for the file type you selected, or click the arrow next to Other Programs to show additional programs.
• Click OK.

I don't there is much a problem with your icons. If you click on the .lnk file, the file should be opening up with the help of the exe file associated with it. But if you have the problem opening this file than that may be the problem related to the exe file itself and not the icon which calls the exe file. Whatever may be the case, to solve the problem with the file association go to Start \Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs\Set Associations and make the necessary changes.

According to me the problem occurs if the application is having the fault. I think the exe file that the icon represents has been corrupted or missing or may be something else like the registry associated with it has been causing the problem. If that's the case then I would recommend you to install the application once again. If the problem is associated to Windows Registry then you first have to use some registry cleaner to remove all the traces of the software and then you can proceed with the re-installation of the application once again.

Ok I will try your suggestions today evening. And just for curiosity I also wanted to know how does problem arose? I don't want to get this problem once again and so I am eager to know about the cause of the problem and how to prevent it from happening it in the near future. Can you explain me the cause of the problem? I would be happy to know something more about it.

What I know about lnk is that it is a Windows Shortcut file which links to an application, file or directory. These types of files makes a link to a software from another location. These files are used as shortcuts for executable and other files and are usually located on computer desktop or start menu. When you click on one of these shortcuts, you are actually clicking on the .EXE file itself to which the lnk file is pointed to. At the end the application gets triggered and it gets started. However, with time you may notice some errors or problems such they suddenly stopped working with these .LNK files because the associated .EXE file registry has got been changed. This is usually done by some malware program.

I had that same problem and it turn out to be a corrupted iconcache.db file. Whenever you create a user account, Windows7 will copy the db file in the Windows subdirectory and create one for each user. Merely copying the one from the Windows OS subdirectory corrected the problem. Make sure that the db file in the subdirectory is an earlier version then copy it into the user's appdata directory (do a iconcache.db search to locate the user version and the WIndows OS version). Hope this helps.