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02 Feb 03 - 12:05 AM (#880479) Subject: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: Stilly River Sage I suspect this is headed toward John in Kansas, but any who can help, please jump in. I may have done something REALLY DUMB. I upgraded my Windows software (I have Win2000 professional) with various patches from the update site at Microsoft. Several must be loaded individually, and then the computer must be restarted. I have done all of them except the newest version of Internet Explorer. This evening I put the Servicepak 3 on (I had it archive my files so I can supposedly uninstall it if I wish). Anyway, I keep a number of popular links as shortcuts on my active desktop. So if I'm interested in going to see what is going on at Mudcat Lyrics and Forum, I just click on the desktop Icon instead of opening IE first and then going to Favorites. My shortcuts for other programs work, but anything with IE (except the IE program itself) won't open. I get the message "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the Folder Options control panel." I have in the past had to "associate" programs, but not for a long time. And when I visit the Folder Options folder in Control Panel, I can't find the files that are apparently orphaned now, and when I find something that looks likely, I can't make it associate with IE because no icon for IE is in the choices for associations. This explanation probably isn't entirely clear, because there are so many dialog boxes to try to navigate or describe. But has anyone experienced this "loss of association" before, and what did you do? Should I uninstall the Servicepak? I had been considering installing the latest version of Internet Explorer. Would that help? Or is that any good? (I ask because I'm regretting updating my Netscape on my ME platform. This newest version stinks, so I didn't upgrade it here on my Win2000 platform.) SRS |
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02 Feb 03 - 04:02 AM (#880517) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: JohnInKansas Stilly - Last question first: - I hung onto IE5 for a long time, simply because I was not too confident that they were telling the "whole truth" about newer versions; but I finally reached the point where a newer version was shown as "mandatory" to install some of the security fixes, and installed the "latest," which I believe is still IE6. (I've had a couple of updates since the "big move.") Based on my experience, in Win98, Win2K-Pro, and WinXP-Pro, the latest IE won't hurt you. I have a general impression that it's "better," but most of the things it adds in are not that visible. I have not had any problem with "losing" any existing functions. Note that the same does NOT apply to MSN Explorer, which is a different animal altogether. New releases of MSN Explorer often disable old capabilities that MSN (not the same thing as Microsoft) thinks you don't need – and MSN will not give you a straight story on their "upgrades." Re Win2kPro SP3: There is apparently a little bit of "untruth" in the download package. You can "uninstall" SP3, but there are a few features included in/with it that cannot be uninstalled. This isn't generally something to worry about - unless you're a network administrator concerned with Win2KServer managing Win2KPro machines, as most of the "unremovables" are features that are only used by EServer setups, You can get details at Win2K Home by putting "SP3" into a search. Click on the "Download Windows Service Pack 3" and then look especially at the "readme," and "deployment information" packages. Note that I'm not recommending that you need to look at all this – it's just there if you're curious. Win2KPro SP3 does incorporate a "wrap up" of previous fixes, and installation should be considered to be in the "good thing" world – unless someone else comes up with arguments I don't know about. Just be sure you get the "Pro" version, and not one of the half-dozen "Server" versions. There are a couple of ways that you can get a "url" shortcut onto the desktop, and some of them are known to cause problems – and the shortcuts they produce sometimes stop working with even minor changes. A "significant" change like Win2KPro SP3 (or any change that requires a reboot) can break desktop links – especially if they're anything but "plain vanilla" shortcuts to an executable file. Shortcuts via IE to a specific url don't really fall into the "plain vanilla" category, since they must "open an executable,' and send it what amounts to "second hand" data as an "argument" to execute on. I'll assume you used only the conventional method: 1. Open IE 2. Go to the site 3. Add the site url to Favorites 4. Click on Favorites, right-click the link, select "Send to" and then "desktop." While it's theoretically possible to "hand edit" an existing shortcut to make it work again, it can be a rather complex process that depends on how the shortcut was created. It would probably be simpler to make new links, using the steps above. The desktop icon may give you the url you used if you right-click and select "properties." In some cases, the desktop icon shortcut may only point to the "real" shortcut, which will generally be in C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Desktop. Right-clicking that file (which need not have the same name as the desktop icon) should generally give you the url, if it's not available on the desktop. You can probably copy (Ctl-C) the shortcut from the "properties" target box. Paste (Ctl-V) into Word or notepad if you need to "edit" to get it cut down to the actual url. Copy and paste into the address bar in IE to connect up. Try creating one or two new desktop shortcuts to urls, and see if they work. If it does, I'd recommend just rebuilding – and delete the broken ones (AFTER you have the new ones working). IE doesn't normally appear in the "associate" utility, and it's rather tough to make that association by hand edit. Too many variables depending on how your Windows and your IE are set up. I'm reading your query to say that other shortcuts still work. It's only links to urls that are broken? If that's not the case, it may need some other research. John |
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02 Feb 03 - 03:49 PM (#880812) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: Stilly River Sage John, I tried making a new desktop shortcut to the Mudcat page I had linked before, and it gave me the same message that the URL wasn' associated. I'll try adding it to my favorites (they seem to work) and move that to my desktop. And I guess I'll go add the new IE before I do this. Might as well fix the odd stuff (and throw away the AOL links) all at the same time. SRS |
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02 Feb 03 - 03:56 PM (#880817) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: Stilly River Sage John, I just tried adding the Mudcat page to my favorites then making a shortcut from there. It still doesn't work. I'm going to have to check out my desktop, I guess. After I download the IE6. SRS |
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02 Feb 03 - 05:18 PM (#880854) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: JohnInKansas Stilly - Win2K SP3 adds the ability to "hide" access to IE, Outlook Express (OE), and Media Player, or to "disable" them completely. This is a feature designed to permit system administrators to prevent people from "finding" them, or to prevent them from using them altogether. This capability is not present in previous versions of Win2K. This isn't something you would be likely to have elected during an install of SP3 - unless you poked pretty deep into the settings and did a manual install instead of just taking the defaults. If you elected to "hide" these, you would still be able to get to them by displaying hidden files and going directly into them, but it might prevent desktop shortcuts from working - I don't know for sure. If you still have SP3 installed, you can check on the settings that do this stuff. Instructions are in the Knowledge Base article 324644 at the link below. If, for some reason, you "hide" or "disable" access to these programs, and then remove. (or attempt to remove) SP3, the ability to change the hidden/open or access/no-access abilities are removed, and you cannot restore access to these programs. The fix is to reinstall SP3, and change the properties for the programs to whatever you want. Once they are accessible, you may remove SP3, although I see no reason why you would want to. Information may be found in: 324644: Cannot Restore Access to Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, or Windows Media Player After You Hide Them and Then Remove Service Pack 3 This is a "long-shot" diagnosis, but it should be pretty easy to check out if the new IE6 install doesn't take care of it. John |
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02 Feb 03 - 07:15 PM (#880944) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: Stilly River Sage John, Thank you very much for sending along that link! I didn't knowingly change any settings when I installed it, but I'll go read that information and see if I can extract something useful from it. I've spent the weekend upgrading and updating everything. Every so often you just have to waste the weekend this way. Big adjustments never seem to happen in just a fewe minutes and you're finished. But I must say, DSL sure speeded things up! I used to set the computer to download while I was sleeping, because it was going to take a couple of hours via the modem. I saw things download in under 2 minutes this time. Wow! SRS |
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02 Feb 03 - 07:44 PM (#880967) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: GUEST,Q I put a song on my desktop sometime ago (working out the lyrics) I played it several times in the past two months. Windows Media Player Read this thread and tried it. Got error message "cannot open." Went to more help link on that message and got "The server, a computer setup to offer multimedia content to other computers, is too busy to answer your request for multimedia content (error=C00D0013). "More help is available- click here. Found that error is "No timely response from the server." Instructions are to try to play the file at a later time. Confused but not amused |
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02 Feb 03 - 09:45 PM (#881020) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: JohnInKansas Guest Q - Media player, QuickTime, and a few others may tell you that they're saving something to your machine when they actually only save a link to the source. You frequently do need to "be connected" in order to play what you think has been saved on your machine - and it can be tough to tell where the "object" is living. The error messages you got are telling you that you have to get your song from the server each and every time you play it, and that the server is busy - or down - now. All you put on your desktop was a link to the server. John |
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03 Feb 03 - 03:13 PM (#881631) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: GUEST,Q You are right- I checked the files where I thought I- or could have- saved it and it ain't there. |
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03 Feb 03 - 06:06 PM (#881807) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: Stilly River Sage John, I see some changes in how the security stuff works on IE 6 (it seems to discriminate a bit better on the cookies that come in and the information that goes out). It places little icons on the address line and moved the history feature to the bottom of the menu under the "down" arrow next to the "back" button. So far, so good. SRS |
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03 Feb 03 - 11:01 PM (#882007) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: JohnInKansas Stilly - I've noticed that I do occasionally have to enter sites in the "accept cookies" box - using apparently my same old security settings. I think this is partly IE6 and partly some of the Windows security updates - that are a little better implemented by IE6. It does seem to cut a little finer, and gives better - and more understandable - warnings; at least once you get used to seeing the few extra info items. John |
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27 Feb 03 - 12:29 PM (#899770) Subject: RE: Tech: MS Servicepak 3 killed desktop shortcuts From: Stilly River Sage John, I finally figured it out, while I was doing something else (of course!) My desktop shortcuts were dead in the water and I got out of the habit of using them. But I found that one of those service paks I installed put in something called "Set Program Access and Defaults" in the Start Menu, along with an icon that looks like a gear (wheel) and an open software box. I poked around in there and found the way to tell it to make IE the default for running my desktop links. It was just sitting there waiting for me to find it. I suppose if I'd gone looking for a "Read Me" file I might have seen something about it. Anyway, here is a Microsoft page that offers information about it. SRS |