extra icon in control panel

[DW]

For about a month or so, I've noticed that there appears to be an extra icon
in my control panel. It has positioned itself as the very first icon at the
left-hand edge of the top row. Clicking on it does nothing, dbl clicking
greys it out.

Anyone know what this is? What it might have been in another life? Is it
safe to delete (I assume yes but thought I would check first)

Thanks

DW
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
AMD x2 4400
2gig OCZ Platinum ram
nvida GeForce 7800 gtx v.81.98
Windows XP pro sp2

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Hi DW,

First to find if it's a CPL file, follow the advice below. Credits to Mike
Williams for this method.

Open Control Panel and right-click the extra icon, and choose "Create
Shortcut". Click Yes when you see the following dialog.

---------------------------
Shortcut
---------------------------
Windows cannot create a shortcut here.

Do you want the shortcut to be placed on the desktop instead?
---------------------------
Yes No
---------------------------

Then in the Desktop, right-click the shortcut that you've just created and
choose Properties. Click the "Change Icon" button once. You'll then see the
actual CPL file name in the resulting dialog. Then you can gather more
information about that particular CPL file, and then delete it if you don't
require that file.

On the other hand, not all the Control Panel icons are powered by CPL files,
but they can be namespace items as well. To manage the namespace items in
the Control Panel, use the utility documented in the following article that
I've written.

How to remove an invalid icon in the Control Panel?:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/cpicon.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


For about a month or so, I've noticed that there appears to be an extra icon
in my control panel. It has positioned itself as the very first icon at the
left-hand edge of the top row. Clicking on it does nothing, dbl clicking
greys it out.

Anyone know what this is? What it might have been in another life? Is it
safe to delete (I assume yes but thought I would check first)

Thanks

DW
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
AMD x2 4400
2gig OCZ Platinum ram
nvida GeForce 7800 gtx v.81.98
Windows XP pro sp2

 

[DW]

Ramesh,

When I tried to create a shortcut on the desktop I got an error message
saying "Windows could not create shortcut. Check to see if disk is full."
Which being a huge hardisk and a new machine, it isn't anywhere near being
full.

So, now what?

Thanks for the help, BTW.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Hi,

How about dragging the icon to Desktop. A shortcut is automatically created.
If that does not work, then see the link I gave you and try both the methods
listed there.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Ramesh,

When I tried to create a shortcut on the desktop I got an error message
saying "Windows could not create shortcut. Check to see if disk is full."
Which being a huge hardisk and a new machine, it isn't anywhere near being
full.

So, now what?

Thanks for the help, BTW.