All desktop icons become "Command Prompt"???

[William P.N. Smith]

My mother and sister were fiddling with my mother's laptop, and got
the icons for all the desktop programs to look like the one for the
command prompt:

http://compusmiths.com/CommandPromptIcons.jpg

Trying to change them doesn't work (the changer tool thinks they are
right), and dragging new icons from the (say) AOL program group onto
the desktop makes new ones that look like the command prompt again.

Any thoughts? It's not clear if it's something they did (they were
setting the default printer), something that happened just out of the
blue, or some new kind of mal-ware...

Thanks!

 

[Dave Patrick]

Control Panel|Display|Appearance|Advanced and try changing the icon size by
one, apply changes, then go back in and change the size back. This should
cause the operating system to rebuild the shelliconcache file which may be
in a corrupted state.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


<William P.N. Smith> wrote:
| My mother and sister were fiddling with my mother's laptop, and got
| the icons for all the desktop programs to look like the one for the
| command prompt:
|
| http://compusmiths.com/CommandPromptIcons.jpg
|
| Trying to change them doesn't work (the changer tool thinks they are
| right), and dragging new icons from the (say) AOL program group onto
| the desktop makes new ones that look like the command prompt again.
|
| Any thoughts? It's not clear if it's something they did (they were
| setting the default printer), something that happened just out of the
| blue, or some new kind of mal-ware...
|
| Thanks!
|
| --
| William Smith
| ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com

 

[David]

Dave Patrick wrote

Control Panel|Display|Appearance|Advanced and try changing the icon
size by one, apply changes, then go back in and change the size back.
This should cause the operating system to rebuild the shelliconcache
file which may be in a corrupted state.

I've found an additional step necessary in my trials:
Start|Shutdown or Logoff, wait a couple of seconds and Cancel

 

[William P.N. Smith]

Control Panel|Display|Appearance|Advanced and try changing the icon size by
one, apply changes, then go back in and change the size back. This should
cause the operating system to rebuild the shelliconcache file which may be
in a corrupted state.

Yes, that worked (nearly) perfectly, thanks! It came back after an
aborted Windows Update, but repeating worked fine, and I've run a
complete Scandisk and printed out explicit directions if it should
happen again.

[And please don't get me started on 295K windows updates that
"download" quickly and then "install" very very slowly, where dropping
the internet connection in the middle of the "install" phase kills the
install. Finally you realize that the _other_ 3 megabytes of the
"installation" are being transferred over the internet link during the
"install" phase. Sigh...]

Thanks again!

 

[Dave Patrick]

Glad to hear it's sorted.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


<William P.N. Smith> wrote:
| Yes, that worked (nearly) perfectly, thanks! It came back after an
| aborted Windows Update, but repeating worked fine, and I've run a
| complete Scandisk and printed out explicit directions if it should
| happen again.
|
| [And please don't get me started on 295K windows updates that
| "download" quickly and then "install" very very slowly, where dropping
| the internet connection in the middle of the "install" phase kills the
| install. Finally you realize that the _other_ 3 megabytes of the
| "installation" are being transferred over the internet link during the
| "install" phase. Sigh...]
|
| Thanks again!
|
| --
| William Smith
| ComputerSmiths Consulting, Inc. www.compusmiths.com