WOW!! HOLY Mackerel!!! Finally got the Doug Knox thing to work----The
system is back
[/QUOTE]
Can anyone explain the mechanics of the fix that worked here? Just curious.
I dunno what the "Doug Knox thing" was, but I suspect the fix was to
restore broken associations for .lnk and/or .exe
Shrotcuts in the Start Menu are mostly .lnk files, which point to
local file system objects other than DOS programs (which use .pif).
Two of the settings applied to .lnk are IsShortcut and NeverShowExt.
If those are lost, then you may see the .lnk extension (that was
always there) in the Start Menu, as well as for any .lnk shortcuts on
the desktop (where the arrow overlays may vanish).
OTOH, the file association for .exe is to run itself as the "command".
Some malware adds themselves as the "command" for .exe, so that if the
malware file id deleted without cleaning this up, .exe no longer run.
In this case, it's more likely that a corrupted registry caused the
hang, or the bad exit from the hang corrupted the registry.
If that damaged file associations, then you might get these (d)effects
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"We have captured lightning and used
it to teach sand how to think."
