In WindowsXP Professional (for personal use) I had uninstalled a faulty programme to reinstall it and saw an executable file in the start menu in the top box. It was just called "Setup.exe" and I looked at properties and it said "unknown" so I thought it was something the uninstalled programme had left. I changed it to open with notepad so it couldn't run anything iffy and removed it from the list. I found I had accidentally changed every single programme icon to open with notepad and nothing will run! I found the file I have changed and it's in the Windows/prefetch folder but now I don't know what to substitute for notepad so that all my other programs will launch again. Can you help please? I'm sorry for the noobiness, I don't use windows often nowadays

I'm going to caution you against doing something and then turn around and ask you to do it.

While I don't recommend running commands that you might get from some random website, I've attached a file that will restore your .exe file behavior. Since it is shown below, you can see nothing malicious there.

Copy the lines below and save them to your desktop in a file you name FixEXE.reg. Now double-click FixEXE.reg, or right-click and select Merge. This makes a change to your registry that should solve your problem.



Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe]
@="exefile"

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



I hope this helps,
WallyH

I suspect the .lnk association not the .exe
I get this problem at least one a mount.

Copy the following code to a text file then rename the file from .txt to fix.reg (.reg is the most important)
Run the registry file, Import and restart...

Here is the code:



Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

;LNK file association fix for Windows Vista.
;Updated on April 24, 2007

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk]
@="lnkfile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellEx\{000214EE-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@="{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellEx\{000214F9-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@="{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellEx\{00021500-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@="{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellNew]
"Handler"="{ceefea1b-3e29-4ef1-b34c-fec79c4f70af}"
"IconPath"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00, 52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\
74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d ,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,\
00,68,00,65,00,6c,00,6c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,64,00 ,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,2d,00,\
31,00,36,00,37,00,36,00,39,00,00,00
"ItemName"="@shell32.dll,-30397"
"MenuText"="@shell32.dll,-30318"
"NullFile"=""
"Command"=-

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellNew\Config]
"DontRename"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile]
@="Shortcut"Shortcut"EditFlags"=dword:00000001
"EditFlags"="@shell32.dll,-4153"FriendlyTypeName"NeverShowExt"@shell32.dll,-4153""NeverShowExt"IsShortcut"
""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\CLSID]
@="="

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandl ers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandl ers\OpenContainingFolderMenu]
@="{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandl ers\{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\DropHandler]
@="{37ea3a21-7493-4208-a011-7f9ea79ce9f5}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\shellex\IconHandler]
@="{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.lnk\UserChoice]