Icons not working on desktop

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.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/972465

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.

***Does Google (Chrome) Track You***

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.

Inland. I ran the scan, now should I be getting the information or if there was a problem will it just fix it? I would like to know the findings.

It will report any errors found, and fix them automatically - but... it does run by rather quickly, so watch it carefully.

You almost have to sit there and watch it as it is doing the scan. There won't be a "report" at the end.

You can get chkdsk results using Event Viewer.
Here are pictorial instructions for getting chkdsk results in Event Viewer:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

Beats sitting around waiting for chkdsk to finish.

I didn't know that, Jenny! Learned something new here again!

Thanks. I took a look and I'm sure you guessed that I had no idea what I was looking at but still found it interesting. Hopefully the PC will run more smoothly since running the scan, Yes?

If it reported that it found and corrected errors - you should be okay, but I'd keep an eye on the drive. Check it once a week for issues. If no errors were reported, you may have registry issues. Those can be difficult to repair. Generally the resolution is a system restore to a point prior to the problem occurring.

Hi. Smooth is not what I'd call the way my PC is running. I cannot use Mozilla, IE, AOL, CCleaner but was actually able to get to GB using Bing after a few minutes and 3 blank window pages popped up. I don't think this is a good sign.
I haven't checked anything else. The pc seemed to freeze up and I thought I was going to have to manually shut it down when finally the task manager came up.

Exactlly how far back can you do a restore?

Bing is not a browser - it is a search engine used by IE. So you must have reached GB using IE.

Depends on when the last restore point was made. If I'm remembering correctly, this has been going on for a very long time which probably predates any restore points. I wonder if this computer has a recovery partition where you can restore it to factory condition.

I use the Bing desktop, search box is on my destop and I love it as well as their desktop wallpaper.

This has gone on a very long time and can't believe that the scandisk didn't give a positive boost to my pc. If I do a complete restore and take it back to factory condition won't I loose all of my files, downloads, documents, games, favorites etc., etc.?I say alot, all!
I am so mentally exhausted with this pc problem and with my husbands recent medical issue. If there is an easy, stress free fix for the pc, please let me know.
I'm exhausted and not wanting to go to bed yet will get an iced coffee to keep me going a bit longer.
Thanks.

A simple fix for those items that you can no longer run might be to uninstall and then reinstall them. At least the registry entries would be recreated correctly.

What specifically happens when you attempt to run CCleaner?

And yes, you will loose all of your data with a factory restore.

I don't use the Bing desktop, but I do use the search engine. Do you know which browser is your default? Yes, you will lose everything if you do a factory restore, but it would still beat having a computer that doesn't work and causes nothing but headaches.

Just wondering, it's been a Long time since I had Vista, but does Vista have a Repair feature that Terri could try if he still has his Vista DVD?

She will have to verify, but if I remember correctly, this is an HP desktop and they do not ship the OS DVD with the computer.

No, but they do have a restore partition - at least all those that I've seen.

That's what I was hoping...

Strange, the pc seems to be working ok today. The disks that I've found thus far are the recovery disk I made P6115y 09/2009, 3 recovery disk, and something made 03/2010 Bootable Diagnostic media. There could certainly be more disks hiding around here somewhere. Please, what is a "restore partition", I've heard of it but not familiar with it.

The restore partition is what you create the restore media from - some PC's also allow you to restore directly from them without creating the media.

OMG Inland. I think it might be best if I quit asking questions pertaining to computers. That answer went round and round in my head. But thanks for the answer!

Some computer manufacturers set aside a portion of the hard drive and put an exact copy of your operating system and whatever else they included on your computer when it was new on that partition. They call it the "restore partition." If you ever need to, you can reset your computer back to exactly like when your first brought it home. In other words, you can reset it to "brand new." It's often the easiest - and sometime the only - way to get rid of viruses and other problems.

Does that help?

Yes it does. However if that's the case then why do they recommend that you make a copy when you purchase your PC? I think my pc's restore partition is FACTORY_IMAGE (D:).
Again I will lose all my information that I have stored on my pc, it will be like NEW! What happens if I've changed some of the hardware, how will that work? Next, won't my back up provide me with all my files, documents and downloads?

If you've taken a manual backup of your files, yes, you will be able to restore and reinstall them. Some OEM's (like HP) allow you to make a set of recovery discs to restore the PC, others let you restore directly from the recovery partition. The end result is the same, you get an off-the-shelf (like new) PC.

If you've changed hardware, like a video card, it may cause issues with the recovery - but, not to the point that it would be impossible to restore. You would have to manually install drivers for the new hardware.

Edit -

One other thing to consider is this - you will have a "ton" of Windows updates to apply after the restore

As Inland says, yest to restore files, documents and downloads. BUT you will need to reinstall any programs.

And, egads, the updates - I just did one and it took almost 2 days just for the updates with my slow internet connection!

I just thought of something... I assume you have the Vista SP2 update installed on this computer? I worked one one about a year ago that did not have the update installed and that was the cause of many of the issues on the machine.

If your hard drive goes bad, whatever is on the restore partition isn't going to do you much good. But you should be able to boot to the backup discs and restore from those to a new hard drive.


Depends on when you made the backup.

You guys must know by now that I do not use the correct wordage, ( I just call things what I think they are called) not to mention that I don't post everything I need to. The backup that I was referring to is the backup that goes into my EHD weekly. Or at least it did until it got full two months ago ! lol
I do appreciate the fact that you haven't given up on me in all these years.

IF you should decided to restore your computer back to factory, I would suggest you do a fresh backup, no matter when the last one was done.

You realize that this just gets worse. Is there no way to transfer the data from one computer to another or from one EHD to one on another computer?

Of course you can transfer files, documents etc. But you cannot transfer programs - they must be installed to establish registry entries. If you create a fresh backup, restore you computer to factory and then restore the backup, you will have your documents and files such as pictures and downloads there.

I've used Windows Easy Transfer with great success at least a dozen times.

Thanks Drac. I am looking at the site now. Need to read completely and no doubt will be sending you an email. So you can transfer files from one pc to another but you can't transfer games, correct? (no tranfer from one EHD to another)
I am wondering though, if a restore wipes everything out or off the pc, how can you restore the backup?

You can transfer anything that does not require registry entries to work.
Most modern adventure games make use of registry entries.
So it is better to transfer the installers rather than the game folders.

Exactly what Jenny said about programs such as games.

If you use this factory reset it does not wipe everything off the PC... what it does is reset your PC back to exactly like it was when you first bought it. Vista will be reinstalled along with any other software etc. that HP put on the original PC. It will be exactly like it was the first time you booted it up. First thing you would do is start downloading and installing updates - probably for many hours depending on your internet speed. With my slow speeds, it's taken a couple of days sometimes.

If you use Windows Easy Transfer, you will copy your data and user settings to something like an exterior hard drive. Then you would unplug the EHD and do whatever the instructions tell you to reset the PC back to factory. Plug the EHD back in, start up Windows Easy Transfer and move all your user settings and data back on to the newly restored PC.

Your downloads will be transferred. Assuming the game installers Jenny mentioned are in the downloads, you would just reinstall your games from there.

Or like I said, just take it to a shop.

Thank you!

New issue. I removed some items from my EHD before I decided what I was going to do about a possible restore. I then ran CCleaner and Registry and scanned for issues and clicked on Fix selected issues. I backed them up and hit fix selected issues. Now, all my programs on my EHD have been removed, it is 100% useable space. Can someone tell me if I can restore the files?

CCleaner does not remove actual files, just junk. I'm wondering if CCleaner removed registry entries it couldn't find because the programs were on an EHD? Did you have actual programs installed on the EHD?

I'm not going to lie - this might not be a bad thing. From some of the things you told me that were on that EHD, this might be a good thing that this drive is now clean. It sounded like it was full of things you didn't need, were obsolete and were actually not even useable.

Still not sure why a scan with CCleaner would have done this though. Maybe Jenny will know...

Last night I did the same thing and had no problem. So I decided to remove a little more and was only keeping the games after checking them first and a few downloaded software items that I wanted to keep. Well, I thought I wanted to keep them. You could be right as to why it removed everything but again it did not do that last night. Gee, wait until my youngest granddaughter see that all of her games are gone! She is not going to be happy with me.
So are you saying even though I backed up the registry it's all gone? No way can I pick and choose what I might want?

If you are talking about having the EHD connected when you did this, I really have no idea. I've never had CCleaner affect anything on my EHD even when connected. But then I don't install anything over there - trying to play games over the USB connection can be problematic. I only install on my C drive. I'm a bit perplexed, but maybe Jenny or Inland will know what happened.

Are these games your granddaughter likes ones that you can simply reinstall? Are they from disks? Or are they from downloads that you can reinstall from?

Oh wow, not sure where they all came from but I think most were from GOTD, I don't think any of them were from disk. It just dawned on me, I had a disk in the drive, that wouldn't affect anything would it have?
I don't remember having a problem with any games that were on the EHD, even my adventure games. I'm very unhappy with this situation because I'm not sure what else I had from years back that I wanted to keep. Also, the situation here on the homefront is not conducive to harmony within ones self. The fact that my husband left the hospital when the doctor wanted him to stay for observation and more tests is upsetting and his belligerent attitude is seriously getting to me.
Ok, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone knows what the heck I did!
Again Drac...........thanks so much for your help!

If you backed up the registry before running ccleaner, you should be able to restore it to the way it was before running ccleaner.
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/faq/using/how-do-i-restore-registry-backups

Going by your previous post, you may already have done this.

I'm not sure what you mean by this

Ccleaner might remove registry entries if it couldn't see the drive (if you had it unplugged). It shouldn't remove the files on the EHD (though see the end of my post).
If you browse to your EHD using Windows Explorer, do you see anything there? If your files really are gone, there may be a problem with the EHD, the USB port the EHD is plugged into, or the cable connecting them.


Could be due to an intermittent connection to the EHD.


No.

EDIT --

+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+

This person in the ***piriform forum*** reported what they consider to be a bug with ccleaner that sounds similar to your experience. Piriform is the company that makes ccleaner.

Other people were unable to reproduce the bug.
http://forum.piriform.com/?showtopic=38554

I think the current version of ccleaner is version 4.19.
The post is from April 2013. However if this problem doesn't normally happen, they may not have "fixed" it. The "Professional" and "Professional Plus" versions do have an option for "Complete Cleaning" which could erase
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

I've never used the "Professional" version, however if the free version is a partially deactivated version of the "Professional" version, the free version also has the latent capability to "clean" a hard drive -- and a registry problem on your computer could cause the free version of ccleaner to delete files when you don't want it to.

If this was my computer doing this, I wouldn't use Ccleaner again until after doing a fresh install of Windows. Registry problems that cause issues like this are almost impossible to track down, and could be associated with other hidden issues.

I assume you've done a thorough chkdsk (with surface scan) of your hard drive to rule out a hard drive problem. Your current problems with registry may also be the result of previous virus/malware infections -- even though the malware is removed, some of the bad stuff it did remains behind.

Thanks Jenny. What I was saying is that instead of the EHD being full with 0% available it now shows 100% free. Also the EHD was plugged in and I found one enty for 11/14/14, hit the merge button and not sure where to look but nothing has been added to my EHD.
Why are all the programs listed in the "Tools" uninstall in Ccleaner?
What are the little white icons on my desktop with a green window on the left with a blue arrow at the bottom? I was going to send a picture of my desktop but having no luck.
Because I know so little about the computer I am always looking at a quick fix "button" or solution. At this late stage of the game I don't think things are going to change. I have lazy brain syndrome.

Well it sounds like it did the same thing to you as it did to the guy at the piriform forum that I linked to earlier -- deleted all your files. Is there nothing left on your EHD? Did you check?

The only part of ccleaner I've ever used is the registry cleaner.
I've ignored everything else.
Did you get a picture?
Is the problem you don't know how to upload it?
You can't upload at Gameboomers. Instead you have to have an account at some place like photobucket or imageshack or wherever they upload pictures these days. Then you put the link to the upload in a post at Gameboomers.

Hi Jenny. Sorry for the delay in replying. My daughter and her family came for dinner so I was a tad busy. My daughter looked at my pc and said that there are many places that have downloads, not all are in the same place. Guess I could have done that but some of it didn't look familiar. Also some of the downloaded files had been opened and some were still zipped and since I had gotten rid of some of the orange keys from GOTD they can no longer be activated. D. did download a game that had been opened, don't know how many more can be done that way. Jenny, quite honestly I don't know how to do much of anything on the pc and actually was going to send the pictures of my desktop and some other items to someone but could not figure out how to attach them to the email. Also, no I don't think I know how to upload the pictures. I can turn the computer on and not too much more than that. I do get myself into trouble though because if I think that's the way I should do something I do it. Sort of like the bull in the china closet! Gutsey but not too well informed.
I shall try the process again tomorrow. Again it seems that the games or remnants of are on the computer but some not complete.
Also I found something in my documents asvr.exe. I clicked on it and only got "problem with shortcut". I do remember deleteing something that was odd from my EHD, had no idea what it was, Could that have cleaned it out?

Thank you for your help Jenny. Going to hit the sack early again.
Terri

"Also I found something in my documents asvr.exe. I clicked on it and only got "problem with shortcut"."

*Always* be wary of double-clicking .exe files when you don't know what they are. That's just asking for trouble.

Yup. It may have been a piece of a virus left behind by a virus-checker.

What mj2c and Jenny said... All I found is that it could have been left behind from a free fake security program that was downloaded at one time.

I had it in my EHD, so thought I had put it there. Like I said, I looked at the items before I removed them, not that that mattered much. lol
Can anyone tell me why I can't do a backup? It appears that I have plenty of free space for one now. I've tried and all I get is that the last back up failed.
Also I ran AdwCleaner just to see what it did. It mentioned several items that were connected to Alawar, I was surprised but I did not clean it.
Also, currently I notice if I misspell a word it does not underline it. Looks like I've really done a number on this PC!

It depends on what software you are using to do backups.

It's Microsoft Windows Backup. It's odd though I don't think it used to do the backups when I first got the pc then it started backing up the system.

Are you sure? Vista Home Premium doesn't have a built-in backup. If it is one of the business, ultimate or enterprise versions, then they do have backup.

I don't believe I d/loaded anything. I thought it must have come installed. I opened it up to double check and that's what it said. Nuts! Am I off again?

We ARE continuing to talk about your Vista PC like you started in this thread, right? I ask because your Window 8.1 PC DOES have backup which is called File History.

Yes Drac, same computer, Vista Home Premium.
However now that you mention it I have never seen the Win 8.1 do a backup, should I have?

You can schedule one if you want to.
I don't think it does one automatically because you would have to tell it where to put the backup, and you would see if it were prompting you where to put the backup.

If your Windows 8.1 is working well, you may want to do a backup.
You may also want to get a separate ESD for it instead of using the same one you're using for the Vista computer.

Here is a tutorial on using Windows 8.1's backup (aka File History)
http://www.7tutorials.com/introducing-windows-8-how-backup-data-file-history

Thanks Jenny, I've turned it on and it is going into my WD external storage.

Looks like I lied, I got a message that I didn't have enough room on my EHD that has very little on it. So I just closed it out and did something else. I must say, all of these computer problems are not helping my self esteem.
Other than the fact that I am a pro at making the problems but not so good at fixing them.
Tomorrow's anothers day.
~Goodnight~

I wonder if it really has "very little on it" or if it actually has a good deal on it that is simply not accessible. Or maybe it only has a few files on it but they are huge.

I'd recommend getting a new external hard drive to be used solely for the Windows 8.1 computer backups.

Jenny, that is a fairly new EHD. I bought it for the Win 8.1. It has 854 GB free of 931GB. It does have more on it than I remember putting on it.

Hi Terri,
Did the message actually say that the EHD had no room or just that there was no room, the reason I ask is many people have the same problem with EHD when booting up with it and that it is not recognized in the Windows Explorer, therefore, when doing a Backup it will simply search for space on your Hard Drive, some people have to Unplug the USB cable from the EHD and (wait at least 5 seconds) and then replug the USB cable to the EHD for it to be recognized.

Anyway, I wish you all the luck to solve your agonizing problem.

Hi. I don't actually remember what it said, will have to try it again to see. My local disk (C:) has 738GB free of 931GB. Whoa, it says the last time the files were backed up was on 11/18/2014, and it was put in WD (E:) Gee that's great, one less thing for me to whine about. Check that off my list.
Thank you so much Starcom for your help and concern, you're very kind!