User appears to have lost settings

[Al]

Hi, one of our users with a laptop has advised that when she clicks on any
shortcut on her desktop she is getting a message saying that "You do not
have any applications associated with the file" error message. This happens
on all her shortcuts, though if she looks at the properties of the shortcut,
the settings are correct. The icon is also being displayed on the shortcut.

The same is happening when i get her to log in as Administrator.

I tried to get her to look at the User Accounts in Control Panel, same
message. I got her to create a brand new shortcut from WinWord.exe and the
same message was displayed.

However if she opens a Word document by double clicking on the document,
Word will start Ok. This applies to all applications of the computer.

Can anyone tell me what is likely to have happend, and more importantly, how
I resolve the issue

many thanks
A

 

[Sharon F]

Hi, one of our users with a laptop has advised that when she clicks on any
shortcut on her desktop she is getting a message saying that "You do not
have any applications associated with the file" error message. This happens
on all her shortcuts, though if she looks at the properties of the shortcut,
the settings are correct. The icon is also being displayed on the shortcut.

The same is happening when i get her to log in as Administrator.

I tried to get her to look at the User Accounts in Control Panel, same
message. I got her to create a brand new shortcut from WinWord.exe and the
same message was displayed.

However if she opens a Word document by double clicking on the document,
Word will start Ok. This applies to all applications of the computer.

Can anyone tell me what is likely to have happend, and more importantly, how
I resolve the issue

many thanks
A

Since it seems just shortcut files are broken, might try that file
association fix (the one for LNK files) from MVP Doug Knox. Link to the
page: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm