This has been going on for a while, sometimes when I bootup my search and many of the icons won't work when clicked on, the little hourglass turns and then disappears. Tonight my AOL, Google Chrome, Bing desktop search and IE are not working. I also had some messages earlier that the icon did not lead to a program. Is there a simple fix? No questions for me because I have no answers as to why this has happened. I had to use Mozilla to get on the internet and that's something I don't usually use. (HP, os Vista)

Thanks,
Terri
Almost forgot, can't get into my Hotmail account on this pc but can on the other one. (Cyberpower, os Win 8.1)

Sounds like your file associations are broken.
Try this -

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/change-default-programs#1TC=windows-vista

Sounds to me like either a virus or a failing hard drive.

Can you open the same items from Start, All Programs?

No Inland, can't access from start. Today it seems that everything I clicked on was tied to Chrome, so I uninstalled it. Now if I try to use Firefox I get "can't load XPCOM". I can use IE. My Bing desktop will do nothing. If I type in a search, click, it just disappears.

mj2c, thanks. I gave that a go and got my Bing working. Firefox still has a problem, get that same message. Wonder if I should reinstall Google Chrome.

I would follow both of the items MJ2C posted - It sounds like you've got a few things going on.

If it was me, I'd stay away from Chrome and either fix or reinstall Firefox. I've had to give up on and uninstall Chrome on 2 computers I worked on. I didn't feel so bad about giving up when the son-in-law of the one guy said he did the same thing on another computer. The son-in-law is in IT Security for the Army and is waaaay above my head in knowledge.

Thanks so much techie boomers. I reinstalled/updated Firefox and all seems ok thus far. I shall go back and double check everything but I feel so much better about this PC now. I use Bing desktop search as my default, is that bueno or no bueno? Do most of you use Firefox as the default?

I still use Internet Explorer 99% of the time, I just find it easier to use than the others. Firefox is nice, but I don't like having to install add-ons to use features built in to IE.

Either one is superior to Chrome.

If you're using IE and Firefox, you should be OK.

Ok, let me ask this, bear with me............Firefox automatically uses Google, so it's not Google that's the problem but Google Chrome, is that correct?

Correct - Google is a search engine, Google Chrome is a browser.

Gotcha, thanks Inland. Hopefully I will remember after I send this.

Plus, you can change the default search engine in Firefox to anything you want. I happen to be using the Bing search engine right now while I try something out. Just click the little down arrow next to the Google icon in the search box to see what else is available.

So these "icons" that aren't working are only shortcuts to Internet websites?
That is very different from all icons, including those to games, MS Word, and other programs suddenly not working.

That does make a big difference.

If you can right click one of the desktop links and select Properties we'd have a better idea of what's going on. Post the Target (from the Shortcut Tab) and the name (from the Details Tab).

Once upon a time, Chrome seemed to be a good browser choice. Lately, though, I've read where more and more users are getting away from Chrome because of problems which hose up their PCs.

Homer you should not be surprised that browser comes from Google. They are the guys who "accidentally" stole people's private data when creating street view. Google claimed they did not know they were gathering the data and were shocked when they found it. If you believe that claim how come they still retain all that data in their server farms? They refused to purge data they claimed they did want. You should not be surprised their browser is keeping track of everything you do on line. Deceit like this is why everything Google is banned on my PC.

Oops, I thought I was done since it seems to be working. I will have to go back to check some of the other icons but yes I have also had problems with some of the utilities, ie: CCleaner, Malwarebytes. (also games)
It's odd because sometimes when I boot up all seems ok but other times many icons don't work and I will restart or try to restart the pc but more times than not it won't boot up. So I wait for a while and give it a go again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I wait a bit longer.

That sounds to me like there might be a hard drive issue too.

You'd be wise to schedule a Scandisk and check the drive for errors - at the very least, if you have any issues with the file system, it will attempt to correct them for you.

Right click the hard drive from "Computer" and then select Properties, Tools, Error Checking (Press check now). There will be a series of prompts (do not select Attempt Recovery of Bad sectors - unless you have a day or so for it to complete). The last thing you'll see is a prompt to "schedule" scandisk on the next boot.

Reboot and watch the program run. If it detects errors it will report them.

I scheduled the Scandisk as you suggested Inland. Thank you, hopefully I will get some idea as to what is going on.
Drac. I don't doubt that there is a hard drive issue. I don't remember how many years ago Inland tried to help me with this, but could never figure out the problem. Someone had mentioned the video/graphics card but that did not fix it. It's the same old 5 counts to on. What I mean is the pc cycles on/off about 5 times before it will boot up. (actually it boots up on the 5th cycle) When it gets contrary all I get is 1 cycle and "no signal" on the monitor or monitors going to sleep. I gave up on that a long time ago. There's many, many pages on GB trying to resolve this, or perhaps many in my PM, can't remember.
Let's see what the Scan Disk says tomorrow.