All .exe files need another program to open them??!!

G

Ghekkoflo

Newcomer
I was transferring photo's from a dig-camera to the pc, which frooze a short time after.

When I rebooted, all exe shortcuts were replaced by a standard icon.
Now, some execs are linked to WinWord (so they open in Word ...), while others need another program to open them?!

I did a reg fix but that didn't help either.
What adjustments do I have to make to make my execs executable again???

Via MsConfig or Regedit maybe?
On Win98SE, onboard video + audio + 256mb ram.


Thanks all.
Ghekkoflo


[edit]
When Win boots, it gives me this :

"Windows cannot find Winword.exe. (coz I renamed it :) )
This program is needed for opening files of type 'Lnk File' "
('Lnk File' is a program shortcut.)
And now Systray has vamoosed too!!


WTF?!
 
usher said:
use system restore to a point just before you transferred the pics
Click to expand...

Win98SE doesn't have that feature I believe.
But I got it fixed : in regedit, the .exe file assoc. info was wiped and the .lnk one altered.
 
Ghekkoflo said:
usher said:
use system restore to a point just before you transferred the pics
Click to expand...

Win98SE doesn't have that feature I believe.
Click to expand...

That's true bur Windows98 does registry backups each time it starts respective once a day.
As most Window9x problems are registry-related, they can be fixed by going back to an older version of the registry files.
 
nobody said:
Ghekkoflo said:
usher said:
use system restore to a point just before you transferred the pics
Click to expand...

Win98SE doesn't have that feature I believe.
Click to expand...
That's true bur Windows98 does registry backups each time it starts respective once a day.
As most Window9x problems are registry-related, they can be fixed by going back to an older version of the registry files.
Click to expand...

Where does it put these?
The last one on my pc is the one I made myself.
Or is this one of those "not-findable with Find"-things?
Then I don't trust it AT ALL though.
 
These registry backup files resides in $windir$\system\sysbckup where $windir$ is your windows directory.

They are named rb00x.cab where x=1...5 (per default only 5 backups are made, then the oldest will be overwritten).
The file is packed as a cabinet file (.cab) and includes system.dat, user.dat (the binary registry files) and also win.ini and system.ini.

note: you need to boot to plain DOS only if you want to replace your current system.dat/user.dat with the backup files.
 
nobody said:
These registry backup files resides in $windir$\system\sysbckup where $windir$ is your windows directory.

They are named rb00x.cab where x=1...5 (per default only 5 backups are made, then the oldest will be overwritten).
The file is packed as a cabinet file (.cab) and includes system.dat, user.dat (the binary registry files) and also win.ini and system.ini.

note: you need to boot to plain DOS only if you want to replace your current system.dat/user.dat with the backup files.
Click to expand...

Are those binary registry files heavily compressed?
The one from the latest reg-backup is only about 2Mb while my manual full reg backup is around 12Mb.

I got only 3 .cab's though instead of 5.
And how do you know these files aren't corrupt, since you could be getting a BSOD (or a random pc reboot ...) when the system is backing them up?

Thanks for some valuable info btw!
 
Yes, these files are compressed.
I'm not sure but i think you can open this .cab files with Winzip to see what's inside them.

I'm right now not at my home computer so i can't tell the size of my reg. backup files but i think the are also in the 2MB range whlie my system.dat has well over 11MB IIRC.

These registry backup can of course be done manually. The programn doing this is "scanregw".

Just hit "Start" -> "run", type "scanregw" <Enter> and then your registry will be checked for consistency and you will be asked if you want to backup it.


It never happened to me (and i think it can't even happen the way it is implemented) that one of these backup files is corrupt.

Per default, windows checks the registry each time it boots, but this can be turned off by modifying the "msdos.sys" file. I don't remember the exakt key name but it's something like "ScanReg" which is either set to 0 (no backups on booting) or 1.
 
Yeah I checked for their size with WinZip.

Thanks again for this wealth of very useful info!
Scanregw is my new friend now. :)

I should know the inner workings of the registry really.
Time for a Google methinks ...
 
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