How to Restore .exe icon

Anak · 15 Feb 2011

I think I may have found out what is going on, and a possible work around.

After searching through the area::discussions forum it seems that the problem lies in how the program has been developed, but no one will admit to it.

There are icons for the program, but they are stored in a 3ds program file that does not associate with the .exe program.

So you have to do a side by side file association.
See the ninth post down by Revel:
Area :: Discussions

I tried looking here on 7F for a tutorial to help you on that type of association, but came up with a blank.

I did find these two on MSDN and MS Social answers, but they may do more harm than good in trying to understand how to do it in win 7:
Registering File Extensions for Side-By-Side Deployments
Problems with "File Association" in Windows 7 64-bit

Then I found this disappointing link.
After reading the replies to the question I did not even go to the link that was offered as an answer by Shawn B. Keene:
Need to enhance Windows 7 File Type Association interface. Very cumbersome compared to WXP.

KIUJOL · 16 Feb 2011

I've tried setting the "open with" of the save file to the shortcut instead of the .exe file but it finds the .exe again.

As far as the file association, I found the .exe in the registry but I couldn't understand how to associate a shortcut to it. I don't really understand the registry so I think I better not make changes to it, I might create other problems.

Now I'm only opening them trough 3ds Max. In it's file browser it shows a preview of the scene instead of the icon.

By the way, the way Revel states that he'd rather have a clean desktop than a no icon program makes me think he doesn't even have a shortcut with an icon. My desktop shortcuts are working, it's just the save files that have no icon.

Thanks again for taking the time to look for this.

Anak · 17 Feb 2011

There was one other suggestion.

If you look in the 3ds program file do you see more than one file named 3ds, but does not have the .exe extension included in its file name?

In the instance I found, the poster only had one other file. He added the .exe extension and had windows point to that file to open the program.
The next time it opened all the icons were back.

KIUJOL · 17 Feb 2011

This are the files I have. I think all the ones other than the .exe serve some other purpose tough.
When I hover over the "3dsmaxcmd" it says it has something to do with the render engine. If I click on it the command prompt opens, displays some codes and closes.

Anak · 17 Feb 2011

See the file I have snip-ed?

That's the one you rename to 3dsmax.exe, then have windows point to that to open.

KIUJOL · 19 Feb 2011

That did it. Just adding .exe to that file fixed it. Thanks a lot Anak.

Anak · 19 Feb 2011

Your Welcome KIUJOL, I'm glad we were able to get that sorted out for you.

If you would like to mark your post as solved so as to help others that may have a similar problem.
Click on the red triangle in the upper right corner of your post and tell the staff to please marked this thread as solved.

Thank you for visiting 7F! :)

Steve

chopbot · 21 Mar 2013

Im very sorry to bump this topic... but....

Anak ! YOU'RE A LIFE SAVER!!!!!!!!!!

Unbelievable! I spent so long trying to find a solution until I found this topic, I had the EXACT same problem as the original topic poster, and man, ANAK YOU'RE A HERO!!

Anak's solution works perfect - I had to rename my 3dsmax.exe file to JUST 3dsmax, then rename it back to 3dsmax.exe and it worked LIKE MAGIC!

THANK YOU!

(and yes. I registered JUST to post that.)

Joao Martins · 27 Jan 2015

KIUJOL said:

That did it. Just adding .exe to that file fixed it. Thanks a lot Anak.

Hello all.

I realize that this post is too old, but still now, I'm having the very same issue with 3ds Max 2015.
The files in the main folder look the same as the ones posted above.
There is a 3dsmax.exe, the main executable, and removing and re-adding the exe extension doesn't cut it.
My .max files, although associated with the 3dsmax.exe, they don't get the max icon... which is annoying, and it's driving me crazy...
I think this has something to do with moving the installer from its initial place, but that I can't remember where it was when I installed it... I think this happened when I uninstalled something else from autodesk...
Anyway, if there is any other idea, I'd be gratefull.

Thanks.