Tech Support > Microsoft Windows > Performance/Maintainence > Broken Shortcuts
Broken Shortcuts
Posted by Zoomnbyu on December 23rd, 2005


Hi all. Trying to help my father in law deal with some issues in XP Home
SP2, down to one I can't figure out. New shortcuts created from the base
file result in a file can not be found when he tries to use them. I have
checked the path, deleted and set the shortcuts back up using alt - drag to
the folder, and a few other things. All to no avail. Anyone experience this
or have any thoughts?

Thanks

Zoom

Posted by Jerry on December 23rd, 2005


"PC Magazine" has a program called Shortcut Manager on their web site.

"Zoomnbyu" <Zoomnbyu@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5E7091DB-F1BC-4363-8DCB-D5F854A1D470@microsoft.com...
> Hi all. Trying to help my father in law deal with some issues in XP Home
> SP2, down to one I can't figure out. New shortcuts created from the base
> file result in a file can not be found when he tries to use them. I have
> checked the path, deleted and set the shortcuts back up using alt - drag
> to
> the folder, and a few other things. All to no avail. Anyone experience
> this
> or have any thoughts?
>
> Thanks
>
> Zoom



Posted by Zoomnbyu on December 23rd, 2005


Thanks Jerry, I'll take a look.


Zoomnbyu


"Jerry" wrote:

> "PC Magazine" has a program called Shortcut Manager on their web site.
>
> "Zoomnbyu" <Zoomnbyu@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5E7091DB-F1BC-4363-8DCB-D5F854A1D470@microsoft.com...
> > Hi all. Trying to help my father in law deal with some issues in XP Home
> > SP2, down to one I can't figure out. New shortcuts created from the base
> > file result in a file can not be found when he tries to use them. I have
> > checked the path, deleted and set the shortcuts back up using alt - drag
> > to
> > the folder, and a few other things. All to no avail. Anyone experience
> > this
> > or have any thoughts?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Zoom

>
>
>

Posted by yogi on December 24th, 2005


try right clicking the file and send to->desktop(create shortcut) option

tell me if it works
yogi

"Zoomnbyu" wrote:

> Hi all. Trying to help my father in law deal with some issues in XP Home
> SP2, down to one I can't figure out. New shortcuts created from the base
> file result in a file can not be found when he tries to use them. I have
> checked the path, deleted and set the shortcuts back up using alt - drag to
> the folder, and a few other things. All to no avail. Anyone experience this
> or have any thoughts?
>
> Thanks
>
> Zoom

Posted by Zoomnbyu on December 24th, 2005


Looks to be more than I thought. If I click the actual files to open I get
nothing but Excel opening and a gray screen. If I open Excel and then open
the files in Excel they open fine. This is nuts.
--
Zoomnbyu


"Zoomnbyu" wrote:

> Thanks Jerry, I'll take a look.
>
>
> Zoomnbyu
>
>
> "Jerry" wrote:
>
> > "PC Magazine" has a program called Shortcut Manager on their web site.
> >
> > "Zoomnbyu" <Zoomnbyu@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:5E7091DB-F1BC-4363-8DCB-D5F854A1D470@microsoft.com...
> > > Hi all. Trying to help my father in law deal with some issues in XP Home
> > > SP2, down to one I can't figure out. New shortcuts created from the base
> > > file result in a file can not be found when he tries to use them. I have
> > > checked the path, deleted and set the shortcuts back up using alt - drag
> > > to
> > > the folder, and a few other things. All to no avail. Anyone experience
> > > this
> > > or have any thoughts?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > Zoom

> >
> >
> >

Posted by cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) on December 26th, 2005


On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 13:56:03 -0800, "Zoomnbyu"

>Looks to be more than I thought. If I click the actual files to open I get
>nothing but Excel opening and a gray screen. If I open Excel and then open
>the files in Excel they open fine. This is nuts.


Does the problem affect only Excel? I'll assume so...

Did you re-install orotherwise mess with Excel? Doing so may have
broken the CLSID links to Excel, but if so, I'd expect the opposite
sort of failure pattern, i.e. can't run Excel from shortcut, may or
may not be able to "open" files with Excel, can run Excel if the .exe
is directly launched instead of via shortcut.

As it is, it appears as if the file association finds Excel just fine,
but can't find the data file it was supposed to "open". Try this:

1) Create and save a new .XLS file named NOSPACE.XLS
2) Create folder C:\NOSPACES
3) Create folder "C:\Has Spaces"
4) Copy NOSPACE.XLS to both (2) and (3)
5) Rename NOSPACE.XLS to "Has Space.xls"
6) Copy "Has Space.xls" to both (2) and (3)
7) Try to open all 4 files, state-chart results

I suspect you may get this result...

NOSPACE.XLS "Has Space.xls"

OK Fail C:\NOSPACES
Fail Fail "C:\Has Spaces"

....or perhaps...

NOSPACE.XLS "Has Space.xls"

OK Fail C:\NOSPACES
OK Fail "C:\Has Spaces"

....and if so, add a "%1" after a space at the end of the command line
that runs Excel as defined within Tools, Folder Options, File Types
entry for .XLS files



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