Notepad.exe Error Message

[victory]

MZ?
Today , when I attempted to start Notepad by using START>NOTEPAD icon
from the Desktop I get the message:-

"...C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe is not a Windows\System32
application..."

I then noticed that the Notepad icon which is displayed when START is
selected has changed from its usual appearence to a " square DOS-type
icon" whose path is given as :- " %SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe"

If I now search for "notepad.exe" I get the following results :-

NOTEPAD.EXE C:\WINDOWS
NOTEPAD.EXE-17B64A21.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-18957DA.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-IE40343B.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-336351A9.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-38OC85F9.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
notepad.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32
notepad.exe.old C:\WINDOWS\System32
notepad.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\dllcache

If I click on the first and the last of the above Notepad starts
normally

If I click on the .pf files it says Windows cannot open these files as
it does with the "notepad.exe.old " file.

Can anyone explain why this is happening here and how I can get
Notepad back to normal operation with its usual icon in the START
menu?

B.N.

 

[dev]

/[email protected]/ said:

MZ?
Today , when I attempted to start Notepad by using START>NOTEPAD icon
from the Desktop I get the message:-

"...C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe is not a Windows\System32
application..."

I then noticed that the Notepad icon which is displayed when START is
selected has changed from its usual appearence to a " square DOS-type
icon" whose path is given as :- " %SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe"

If I now search for "notepad.exe" I get the following results :-

NOTEPAD.EXE C:\WINDOWS
NOTEPAD.EXE-17B64A21.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-18957DA.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-IE40343B.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-336351A9.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
NOTEPAD.EXE-38OC85F9.pf C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch
notepad.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32
notepad.exe.old C:\WINDOWS\System32
notepad.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\dllcache

If I click on the first and the last of the above Notepad starts
normally

If I click on the .pf files it says Windows cannot open these files as
it does with the "notepad.exe.old " file.

Can anyone explain why this is happening here and how I can get
Notepad back to normal operation with its usual icon in the START
menu?

Using Windows Explorer, open to the c:\windows directory (folder), locate
the file named NOTEPAD.EXE. Right-click, and drag down to the START
button - and pause for a moment. The menu should appear.

Drag to ALL PROGRAMS, and they should pop up.

Drag to where you want the shortcut to Notepad to appear, and let go of
the mouse.

Click CREATE SHORTCUTS HERE.