Right - the properties of an icon are not very useful. You need to find
the .exe to which the icon points to get the kind of properties that you
are looking for.
More than anyone wants to know, but just for the record:
All I wanted to find was what program the icon pointed to, since the
Run box couldn't find winword. But it turned out there were two
sets of instructions to fix the problem. One was for Starter Word,
and I didn't think my brother had that, since it said it included
advertising, and I didn't see any advertising. But indeed he did have
that, and for that, they didn't suggest winword, or using the Run box
at all.
What happened was the update in September to MS Word screwed up the
associations, so Word files were no longer associated with Word or
Starter Word. The almost expected method was recommended in my
brother's case, using Open With and choosing, well, not Word, but
Microsoft Office Client Virtualization Handler. I guess that is
Starter Word, but it woudln't have occurred to me if I hadn't read it
in the instructions of how to fix this. (Actually for the first 3
days after the problem started, there were no valid instruction, only
bad ones, and some people ended up deleting their Starter Word with no
way offered by MS to get it back, since it's an OEM program. I'm
lucky my brother didn't notice this right away.
The trouble with doing it with "open with" is that I had to do it for
each extension, and since win8 doesn't show extensions, only Type, I
had to hope that there was a different Type for each of the
extensions. (There were two Word Types, one that just said Word iirc
and one that said Word 97.) I figured that winword /r would redo all
the needed associations in one step.
If you have a real and current Office package, then WINWORD.EXE is in
Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14. I don't know about
the Office starter package; it may be elsewhere.
Untrue - that's how I found WINWORD.EXE -- same old app name.
My brother disconnected me, even before I posted, so I can't check
again, I'm sure winword is not there because he doesn't have that, but
I mean check for other executables. I looked in the Programs folder
and also Programsnnn. The print was so small I couldn't see what nnn
was.
Whether or not extensions (for known file types) are displayed is a
user option in WinExp. Invoke WinExp, then click on View, then click on
Options, then click on View (in the Folder Options window), then uncheck
the "Hide extensions" box. That is not new to WinV8; WinExp has worked
that way at least since WinXP
And in WinME and Win98. It has haunted me for every version of
windows, except maybe 3.1. The problem is changing it on my brother's
computer. He might not like that. And I had limited time to find the
right screen, because my brother likes to turn things off when he's
done with them**, not enough time to be sure of changing it and then
changing it back. I guess I should just change it, but I want to
talk to him about it if I do, why the appearance has changed.
**He's my older brother. I only have limited influence on him, even
wrt computers where he knows I know a lot more than he.
But I still expected to see "extension" as one of the possible columns
in WinExp, even if the Folder Option is set to Hide.
It's a big mistake to hide extensions, because there can be a virus
file named BaseballStats.doc and really its BaseballStats.doc.exe and
it's a virus and someone clicks on it thinking it's a .doc file.
And MS shouldn't make hiding extensions, at least those that represent
executables, the default. It's all part of their dumbing things down
for the non-computer types, changing the name directory to folder,
etc. but this one is too dangerous.
Run is still available. With WinV8.1, right-click on the Start icon
(or whatever the M$gang calls the icon that is in the lower left corner
of the desktop where good versions of Win parked the Start button) to
bring up a menu of useful stuff, including Run.
I'm pretty sure I did right-click. Again I forget what happened.
Maybe it was nothing except a blue circle appearing above and to the
right of the cursor
Then click on Run to
get the familiar Run box. On my WinV8.1 with a real copy of Office,
typing "winword" (without the quotes) in the Open box (and then
hitting Enter) invokes Word as expected (I did not try "winword /r").
I wouldn't expect you to try /r. What you did was test enough.
Thank you.
This method of bringing up the Run box is unique to WinV8.1. Under
WinV8, I used a non-M$ app to get to Run, but it was still available.
I don't know if he has v8 or v8.1, but it does show that they made a
mistake in their menus in v8, since they had to add it later.
I got the Runbox to show up by using the winkey + r, but because I was
using Teamviewer I think, I had to try several times. I had trouble
pressing the keys at the right time.
Also, if you use WinExp to point to a data file (e.g., readme.doc)
and right-click on it, you'll get a menu that includes OpenWith --
just like good old WinXP. You can use OpenWith to associate that
data file, or all such, to WINWORD.
Yes, that's what I eventually did. See above. Thanks.
I am not a fan of WinV8 or WinV7 or Vista, in that the changes to
the UI after WinXP seem to be mostly churning -- full employment
for boatloads of programmers.
Exactly.
And I particularly dislike M$'s
attempt to gloss over the differences between PCs and phones/tablets.
(Dinosaur alert: I didn't immediately like WinXP, and I still
use Win98SE on one of my PCs.)
Good luck.
I'll need it. ;-)
