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Old November 3rd 06, 12:01 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.setup,microsoft.public.win98.shell,microsoft.public.win98.sys_file_check,alt.windows98
Ingeborg
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 217
Default For The REAL Expert... Win 98 does not know how to handle LINKS any longer :-(

Paolo wrote:

Hello everybody,

my dad's PC (WIN98/SE) came up with a problem: the links are no longer
recognized as links. Not Internet links: FILE LINKS!

All the links (except for Explorer, that is not a link) on the desktop
now show the generic Windows icon; the little arrow in the lower corner
(characteristic of the links) has disappeared; and the extension .LNK

or
.PIF (for DOS applications), normally hidden, is now visible.

If you click on any link, the window that asks you to choose the
application to be used to open that file pops up: but it does not refer
to the APPLICATION file, it refers to the LINK! This means that what

went
lost is not the association between a file and the application used to
open it (as sometimes may happen), but something at a lower level: the
association between .LNK and .PIF files and the system.

If you launch directly the executable file of the application from
START|RUN, it opens regularly like always: another proof that what went
lost is just the capability to execute the LINKS, not the applications.

How to get out of this? We have at our disposal another machine with
WIN98/SE, should any file need to be copied from a working system.

Thank you everybody for your help.


Is the problem less than 5 days old? In that case try a registry restore.

"How to Manually Restore the Windows 98/Me Registry"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512

Choose the backup from before the problem arrived.