Glad to hear your ordeal is over, Daemonfyre!

Of course, all this begs the general question as to why, in Control
Panel\Default Programs\Set Associations, Vista has the ability to
re-associate the .lnk file type in the first place. Of what earthly good is
it? Like the .exe file type (which isn't in Set Associations), it, too,
shouldn't be available. From Windows XP's File Types tab in Folder Options,
Vista has dumbed down file association editing considerably, at least by
normal UI, non-registry editing, means, yet added the ability to change the
default association for links (the ability to do so isn't available in XP's
File Types tab). And there is no "re-set to default" recovery path. This
addition seems odd, given Vista's apparent goal to further protect the
average user.


"Daemonfyre" wrote in message
...
Ramesh, MS-MVP 4/25/2007 12:32 AM PST

Addendum:

You need to delete this key, specifically:

HEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curren tVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.lnk\UserChoice


That fixed it. All my shortcuts and start menu icons are back and working
normally again. Thanks for all the help folks.