Desktop icons for Word, Excel, Ppt reverted to generic symbol

I am using Office 2003 on Windows Vista. I had installed that because I do not like the interface of office 2007. I found it more complicated. After installing Office 2003 the icons looks to be not working fine. There is a issue with the same. They are converted to a generic block icon symbol. While I can open the files just by right clicking on them and choosing Office 2003 from open with. Does anyone has idea about this.

Try to re-install it. There is no way you can simply replace the icon and add what you want. You can run a repair setup or simply re-install office and then check back. It can be due to improper setup or the office edition that you are trying to install is not really compatible with Vista. Are you able to launch the applications through those shortcuts.