Solved All icons turned to Word Documents

[morninginsanity]

This morning, I notice all my icons on my desktop have turned to WordPad documents.
Not only my desktop icons, but everything in my Start Bar except the Internet.
I assume this happened after I was trying to open a document in wordpad.
Now everything I click opens up as a word document with words and symbols.

I've restarted several times, and I've also tried two times to restore but was told that the restore failed both times.

I have no idea what to do.

Can someone help, please?

 

[richc46]

Welcome
Start by refreshing the icon cache.
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117229-icon-cache-rebuild.html?ltr=I
If that does not work, try a system restore
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html
If that does not work, go to seach by the start button.
Type the name of the software
Then right click and send to desktop. It will create a new icon, alias one by one.

Also make a full antivirus scan
Download and make a full scan with the free malwarebytes.
You may need a new user profile, yours may have become corrupt.

 

[Brink]

Hello MorningInsanity, and welcome to Vista Forums.

It sounds like your shortcut associations were set to have WordPad as it's default programs by mistake. Downloading and merging the lnk (LNK) option, and for any other affected file extension, in the tutorial below should be able to fix this for you.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/233243-default-file-type-associations-restore.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[morninginsanity]

Sorry, in my distress I really didn't give much nor proper information.
My computer knowladge is rather limited.

Thank you both for your help! It is greatly appreatied!
I did what Brink suggested and restored my default file type associations and was very happy to find that it worked.

Again, thank you both! I honestly thought I was going to have to resort to a reformat, and am very happy I do not have to.

 

[richc46]

Brink and his tutorials have helped many. Use them often. We are both glad that the problem has been resolved.
Better than anything you can buy
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/

 

[Brink]

That's great news. I'm happy that we were able to help.