Exe, com, bat, lnk files do not run

philtphilt
edited December 2005 in Hardware
Hello,

Windows boots up fine. However all the links on the Start menu do not work. When you click on these shortcuts it asks for a name of a program to open it with. The same happens with exe, com, bat and other types of files. However when you doubleclick on a doc file it starts up Word and opens the file correctly.

Also for some reason the Internet (Firefox) and Email (Outlook) icons on the Start Menu still function correctly.

It seems to me that the registry has got corrupted and the entries that relate to opening programs are missing (?). But I can't open regedit.exe to take a look or fix it.

System restore has not fixed the problem. Also I tried to repair the Windows XP installation using the XP boot disc but this didn't have any effect either.

Any suggestions?
Phil :confused:

Comments

  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited December 2005
    I believe that

    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command in the registry needs to contain "%1" %*

    Try saving this text as fix.reg and moving it to that computer and running it.
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

    This is usually a sign of a trojan-infection where the trojan changes that registry key in order to re-run itself every time any executable on the system is run. When that executable is deleted but the modified registry key still exists, windows freaks out and tells you it can't find that file whenever you try to run an executable (.exe, .scr, .com, etc.).
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