The shortcut does not open the application. Shortcuts and programs do not launch: instructions for restoring normal PC operation

Hello! Some users may have encountered such a problem when, after turning on the computer, they suddenly discover that it is impossible to open any of the shortcuts on the desktop, if, of course, there are any on the computer desktop itself.

Usually in such situations, users blame the mouse itself, saying that it is faulty or the USB port itself is faulty. Although in fact the reason is a completely different situation. So what exactly is the matter? When one day shortcuts and folders do not open on the desktop. In today's episode, we will look at the main ways to eliminate such a common problem.

Just the other day I was asked a similar question regarding this type of problem.

Hello Dmitry! This morning I turned on my computer and discovered that all the shortcuts on my desktop began to appear the same, and if I try to open the Excel program, then my documents folder starts up. I decided to restart the computer, but as a result, shortcuts and folders no longer open, and in addition, the Start button stopped working. Of course, I’m not an expert in computers, so I turned to you. Best regards, Viktor Sergeevich.

So, what to do in such a situation and what to do? I’ll say right away that the problem is not so serious and it can be easily solved. First of all, you don't need to tear anything down or remove it in a hurry. You need to calm down and pull yourself together. Nothing bad happened and all your data on the computer was not lost. In general, this situation is due to the fact that the user tried to open a program with a completely different program that was not intended to open it.

What does it mean? You ask! I’ll tell you in detail so that it becomes clearer to you. All programs on your computer are stored in the Program Files folder. Moreover, during installation, each program creates a so-called shortcut on the desktop with the extension .lnk for its further launch. This is done so that every time you start a particular program you do not have to open the Program Files folder and look for the desired program.

For example, you installed a program for playing movies on your computer. Accordingly, the extension of such a program will be, for example, .avi, and a shortcut with the extension .lnk will appear on the desktop. That is, the program shortcut serves as a pointer to the operating system in which program the computer needs to open the shortcut launched by the user.

And if a situation arises when we launch one program, and as a result a completely different program opens to us, then in this case a so-called failure of file associations or shortcuts occurs. There was a failure in your system and that is why there was such confusion with opening programs. Although in some cases the shortcuts do not open at all. As a result, users think that a virus got into their computer and caused such an incident with shortcuts. Often a virus can do similar things, but these are very rare cases when a virus is the culprit. Of course, you first need to check your computer for viruses. If you don’t know which antivirus software is best to do this, then check out this article:

Very often, I would even say that about 85% of the culprit is the user himself. How could this even happen you ask? For example, you decide to open a movie on your computer. You double-click on a file with the .avi extension and a dialog box opens asking you which program you want to open this file in. You inadvertently specified an archive, for example WinRaR, and in addition, the checkbox “Use a program to open all files of this type” was checked.

From this moment on, strange things begin to happen with your labels.

How to eliminate the reason when shortcuts do not open?

Method 1. This method is the simplest. This method is suitable for those who do not want to edit anything and mess around in the operating system registry itself. All you need to do is download the finished file and run it on your computer. After this, you will need to restart your computer. The executable file you launch will make all the necessary changes to the system registry.

And if the problem was a file association failure, then all shortcuts will function properly again after restarting the computer.

Method number 2. This method is suitable for those who do not want to edit anything and mess around in the operating system registry itself. If the creation of recovery checkpoints is activated on your computer, then it will not be difficult for you to roll back the system to a previous state. You can learn how to do this in this issue:

This method is suitable for operating systems version Windows 7 and higher. In Windows XP, it will be possible to restore the system through the image itself created earlier. But this is not a very fast solution for Windows XP. For Windows XP you can download a ready-made file.

However, if there are no restore checkpoints on your system, then move on to the next method.

Method No. 3. When your computer is booted, in this case you should press the key combination WIN + R to open the Run window. In the window that opens, in the line itself, type the command regedit and press “Enter”. A Registry Editor window will open. Next, you should follow the next path.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.lnk

Now you should delete the .lnk folder and restart your computer. After this everything should work.

Method No. 4. In this case, you can return the system to its previous state thanks to a previously created image using third-party programs. For example, Acronic True Image, Macrium Reflect, etc.

At the end of today’s article “Why shortcuts on the desktop do not open,” I suggest you also watch the following video.

I hope today’s issue was interesting for you and if you have not yet encountered faulty shortcuts on your desktop, then this article will be a useful note for you.

The problem looks like this: the shortcuts for all programs and folders look like a shortcut for one program. They may look like a shortcut to Notepad, PowerPoint, WordPad, etc. When you try to run any programs (an executable file with the extension .EXE), all programs open, for example, with Notepad. Simply put, the computer tries to open different programs with one program.

Specific case

We came across a laptop (SAMSUNG NP300E5A - purely for information, since this is not related to the problem that arose), in which all the program icons on the desktop looked like PowerPoint icons.

All icons look the same. In a specific case, like PowerPoint, but there may be icons for any other program

When trying to load, for example, the Google Chrom browser, the following message appeared « PowerPoint can't open files like WITH:\…".

Error when trying to launch Google Chrom browser

Solution

Step 1. Make it a rule: if there is something wrong with your computer or laptop, start with an anti-virus scan. On a specific laptop, the free antivirus AVAS Free was installed. It was decided to use the free healing utility Dr. Web CureIt. As a result of the scan, the utility detected 33 threats.

A large number of viruses were detected on the laptop

For the utility to remove viruses, just click the “Deactivate” button.

Step 2. Now you need to download the archive default-yarlyk.zip (2.6 KB), which contains two Windows registry files:

Default_EXE.reg
Default_LNK.reg

Note: if you cannot launch the browser on the computer where problems with shortcuts occurred, you can download the above archive on another computer, and then copy the files to a flash drive.

Step 3. Unpack the files and run them on the faulty computer. In this particular case, the files were downloaded to the computer and unpacked onto a flash drive. Then the flash drive was connected to the laptop.

The files were unpacked onto a flash drive, and the flash drive was connected to the laptop

Files can be launched in any order. A message will appear while the files are running “Adding information may cause values to be changed or deleted unintentionally and components may not function properly...” .

Novice users think that shortcuts are the programs or files themselves, so unexpected problems that arise when clicking on a shortcut are perceived as a problem with the object that it is supposed to call (open an exe file), however, more often than not this is far from the case.

It happens that shortcuts do not open, let's look into this problem

Shortcuts won't open

But sometimes the reason is the opposite - difficulties with a program or file (the application does not start), the shortcut for which is displayed on the desktop, and the user thinks that the problem lies in an incorrect association. To make everything clear, you need to understand the topic, finding out why the above problems may arise.

It happens that the shortcuts on the desktop turn white, but soon everything returns to its place. In such cases, do not worry - everything is in order, perhaps there was a slight freeze in the system (for example, due to an anti-virus scan or simply during intensive work).

It may also be that the difficulty is not that the program does not start, everything is fine here, but that the folders on the desktop do not open, and the message “explorer.exe - application error” may pop up. This usually happens due to the action of malware, but the cause may, on the contrary, be excessive vigilance of the user (for example, the desire to install several antiviruses at once).

What to do when one program opens all the shortcuts

For convenience, the OS automatically (or with the participation of the user) associates certain types of files with a specific program with which they should be opened (for example, txt - Notepad; doc, rtf - MS Word; psd - Adobe Photoshop, etc.). Having once matched the file extension with the desired program, the OS remembers this choice and writes it in the system registry.

However, if the application is missing, corrupted, deleted, or moved to another location, unpleasant consequences may occur. In this case, Windows should prompt the user again to choose which program to open the required file with, but this does not always happen and, like in any business, failures can also occur here.

The reason that all files are opened by one program or are not launched at all may be the activity of some malicious programs that purposefully change associations (most often exe, lnk, bat files), remove and damage system components, disable services, etc. The solution here may be to boot the computer in safe mode, followed by scanning with specialized utilities and restoring the system after a virus attack.

Most well-known anti-virus products have the ability to recover from infection; if the programs do not open on your computer, you can simply visit their official websites from another computer (tablet, phone, Internet cafe), download and, if necessary, purchase the required utility.

Problems launching lnk shortcuts

Lnk format (shell link, link, shortcut) is an extension in Windows OS used to create objects that refer to some other source object (file, folder, program, server), as well as containing information about the type and extension of the source file and volume, using Why do they open it? By clicking on the shortcut twice, the same thing will happen that should happen when clicking on the object itself.

Unlike all other types, the lnk extension is usually not displayed anywhere and does not require a default program to open it, because the shortcut is not the object itself, it only refers to it. However, if the user (or a malicious file) has set the default program to launch lnk, then instead of the original one, when you click on the shortcut, the application that was registered as a means for opening shortcuts will now be launched.

This error has been fixed when working with a shortcut; it can be done in one of the following ways:

through the system registry;
command line tools;
using tweaks, third-party utilities and similar programs.

If you select the option with the system registry, you will need to do the following sequence of actions:

Launch Registry Editor. The simplest way is to call the standard registry editor “RegEdit”, for which you need to go to Applications/Utilities/Run and enter “regedit” (without quotes, of course).
In the HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch, find the \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.lnk section and delete UserChoice.

In the case of the command line, the algorithm will be like this:

In the same Start menu, open “/All Applications/System Tools/”, launch the “Command Prompt” application.
In the terminal window that appears, enter: “assoc.lnk=lnkfile” and press ENTER.

There is no point in describing the third method, since in each specialized third-party utility, the sequence of actions varies greatly.

If desktop shortcuts do not work in Windows 7, to correct incorrect associations, it makes sense to resort to a method in which you will need to go to “Control Panel / Programs / Assign a program to open files of this type” and manually try to make changes.

If the problem is not that all shortcuts are opened by one program or shortcuts on the desktop do not open, and only one or two specific shortcuts are not launched, then it will be easier to delete them and then create new ones. In addition, it is worth recalling that regardless of the chosen method, in order for it to work and the error when opening a file to disappear, you will probably need to reboot the OS.

Shortcuts with .exe extension do not open

WATCH THE VIDEO

The “exe” extension belongs to executable files (programs) for the Microsoft operating system. As with lnk shortcuts, there are plenty of reasons why exe files do not open, and they are basically the same, so in order not to repeat ourselves, we will first describe those that have not been mentioned before.

Files with the extension “exe” are launched by Windows and do not require a program to open them (although a program for opening exe files on a computer has also been created and more than one, but ordinary users are unlikely to need such a program for opening exe files).

An unexpected problem due to which programs do not start on Windows 7 turned out to be some updates (more precisely, kb: 2859537 (kernel file update), kb: 2872339 (latest version of the previous update), kb: 2882822 (to support ITraceRelogger)).

Actually, the reason that the exe file does not start is not these updates themselves, but an unlicensed copy of Windows (yes, if such a problem occurs, then a pirated build of Windows or an activator is definitely used).

Users report that after accepting and installing these update packages, many applications stop launching and only display error messages. As an administrator, enter “wusa.exe /uninstall /” in the command line and then add the name of the update (for example, kb:2872339), press ENTER.

If this was the reason, it would be a good idea to protect yourself for the future by disabling OS auto-updates, because otherwise “broken” updates will be downloaded and installed by the system again. Also, to combat this reason that exe files do not open, you can try to roll back the system to the nearest restore point, and then disable automatic updating, for which you will need to go to the “Update Center” or “Services” and disable the automatic update option there.

If, after checking the methods described above, files still cannot be opened on the computer, this does not mean that the problem can no longer be solved, because everyone still has a chance to turn to professionals for help, who are guaranteed to find and eliminate the obstacles that are causing the program does not open.

Recently I helped a friend with this problem: all the shortcuts began to look the same and can be opened with a notepad. I read people's comments on the Internet and many are horrified by this problem :). In fact, everything is resolved quite quickly and easily.

Windows stores a table that specifies which program to run when accessing a specific file type. It is logical that when I decided to open a picture, the Photo Viewer would launch, and when I decided to open a song, for example, Winamp would launch. So, in our situation, these same associations have gone astray.

But before you solve the problem with shortcuts, make sure that the problem is with them. What else could it be? When we run a file, Windows determines which application it is associated with and launches this application, and this program opens the file.

With labels it's a little different. A shortcut is simply a link to a file. That is, by clicking on the shortcut, an application is launched that should open this file. And if the application file associations - exe - are also broken, then the problem is not only in the shortcuts.

In this article, we will only deal with the case where the problem is related to label associations. So how do you find out if the problem is with the exe files or the shortcuts?

Go to drive C, to the Program Files or Program Files x86 folder, and try to launch any program, for example, Skype. To do this you need to run the file at: c:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe. If Skype starts, then the problem really is with the shortcuts.

Restoring shortcut associations

All Windows settings are stored in its registry and log. You can enter it using a special command. Press Win + R on your keyboard. Now enter the command into the line

The Registry Editor has opened in front of you. It is built in the form of folders, each of which stores its own settings. We need the HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch.

Expand it by clicking on the arrow on the left. Now we are looking for Software beyond Microsoft,

Windows, CurrentVersion, in it we find Explorer and FileExts,