Solved I corrupted XPS files by trying to open with Acrobat - how can I fix?

[JHarts]

I am running Win 7 Home Premium (64 bit) on a Dell n5010

I mistakenly thought XPS Viewer was a pdf application. I have a ton of XPS files on my laptop. I recently installed Adobe Acrobat Pro and thought --- stupidly --- that I should make all these files open with the same program, never realizing that XPS is not a pdf reader. You'd think I would have taken the hint when I did "open with" and Acrobat wasn't one of the choices, but I didn't.

So this is what I did to an XPS file -
[a] right clicked, selected Open With
browsed through the hard drive until I found the Acrobat application
finished the process and, in doing so, corrupted [I][B]every[/B][/I] XPS file on my laptop (more than 15,000). Now, everything that was file type "XPS Document" is now file type "DOWNLOADING file." Most of them now end with .pdf.downloading I thought that, logically, I should be able to undo my mess by right-clicking, selecting Open With and finding the XPS Application. I the name of the file - thanks to your site - and from there was able to find it on my hard drive. I tried what I thought would be the fix and it didn't. Is there anything I can do to fix this mess?

 

[Britton30]

Did you try the xps reg entry from here? http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19449-default-file-type-associations-restore.html#post208633

 

[JHarts]

Just tried it. I got a message that says:

"Not all data was successfully written to the registry. Some keys are open by the system or other processes."

I tried rebooting, thinking if something was open it would close with a reboot. No joy. Still get the same message.

Advice?

 

[Britton30]

Try it from Safe Mode. If that doesn't work, post the question in the association thread.
If you have a restore point to before you changed it, that may help, but doubtful.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html#post4405

 

[JHarts]

It went through in safe mode but it didn't change any of the files, they still all read *.pdf.downloading. I tried changing the extensions on some of them and it didn't help. Should I post the problem to Associations?

 

[alberoto019]

Hey, have you tried to manually change the file extension and the file association?

If not, I suggest you paste this control /name Microsoft.DefaultPrograms on the RUN box, hit the Set Associations link, check the default program for .xps and change it if it is not the Microsoft XPS Viewer.

After that, you change the file extension from "pdf.downloading" to ".xps" i don't know if there is a way for doing this on all the affected files at once.

 

[JHarts]

The file association is set right and I tried to manually change the extension a couple different ways. I just keep getting the same error messages.

What a mess I made.

I'm hoping at this point that I will hear from CrashPlan tomorrow or Tuesday with a solution. I think the old files should still be on their backup, because the ones I corrupted will have new names so I don't think the old files would have been overwritten. I have a new computer arriving on Tuesday so maybe I'll just be able to restore from CrashPlan to the new machine and not have to keep pulling my (and your) hair out over this.

 

[Britton30]

Did you try system restore?

 

[JHarts]

yeah, I did. It didn't help.

 

[Dwarf]

Try the registry fix again, this time from an account with administrative privileges.

If that doesn't work, try uninstalling Acrobat. That might restore the extensions.

 

[JHarts]

My account is an admin account but I tried it again anyways, deleted Acrobat AND deleted Adobe Reader. Still no joy.

Anyone have a magic wand?

 

[Britton30]

Maybe a little stick. Try running http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html#post14392 3 times with reboot between, unless it shows No Integrity Violations on the first run.

If that doesn't work Try a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html#post31238

 

[JHarts]

I got "no integrity violations" on the first run. I'll try the repair install on Saturday --- it looks like it's going to be something I'll need some time with and I am having one of those weeks at work.

You wouldn't think I could make things worse but I did. I back up to one of those services (don't know if I'm allowed to name names) and thought I might be able to recover the files by doing a restore on a different computer. I bought a new laptop and started to do the restore and it said to "adopt" the other computer if I was recovering. I clicked "adopt"...the program started running and at the same time a pop-up came up explaining what adopting was all about. Half way down the page it said "Do not do this until you have restored..." WHAT?!?!? Why didn't they say that in the first place?!?!? Why couldn't they have had a pop-up that said "Hey numbskull, do you want to click Restore first because you're gonna trash your life for the second time in a week in about two seconds." I frantically shut down the computer and called the support desk for the back up service. They'll get back to me in a few days I suppose but it looks like I shot myself in the foot.

I'm getting very close to the part of the process where I accept the fact that I'll never see these files again.

I'll circle back over the weekend after I do the repair install and let you know if I had any success.

 

[Britton30]

Good news on the SFC scan at least.
It is fine to name software here as long as it's not trying to sell or spam it. In this case it would be good so others can avoid it. Let us know how it goes.

 

[JHarts]

Status update -

I haven't tried the repair install yet. Frankly, I'm so burned out with this stuff right now --- I don't know how some of you ppl do this for a living. It's brain-draining.

The back-up service that I use is CrashPlan. I have to say, in all honestly, they are a very good service and the price is really affordable - $5 a month for a ton of data. I do think it would be a good idea to get that "adopt" button out of there but, hours later, I was thinking that is all outweighed by their service and other features of the backup. Someone contacted me within 12 hours of my raising the SOS flag (pretty cool for $5 a mo, eh?). He shared my desktop and showed me how I could restore from the date of my choice even though the laptop was being constantly backed up. It also ended up getting all my files transferred to the new laptop in record time, so that was cool too.

There are still DOWNLOADING files - . I don't know what that means. About 15% of my files are a mess. Some of the ones that were a mess before are somehow (weirdly) fixed. How some fixed themselves and some didn't is a conundrum.

I will try to get to try the repair install sometime this weekend.

My question at this point....with everything copied over to the new laptop (Win8 instead of Win7), do you think it would be worth it to try all the fix attempts again, and are the things that have been suggested specific to Win7 or will they work on Win8?

 

[alberoto019]

I think there's something here we may have overlooked, at this point I don't think the problematic computer continues damaged, and if it is still damaged I don't think we can do much more here, the reinstall is imminent. What I would do in this case is to check on another -perfectly normal- computer the "corrupted" files, if they work the problem is the computer, if they don't the problem is on the files and in that case, if some files work and others don't, my friend, you may lost data here and must focus on how to repair those files.

I know that this sounds kind of "obvious", but still is a basic test and don't remember having read this before...

 

[JHarts]

It's the files, not the computer. With all the files transferred to the new computer, some are of the weird "downloading" type and some are normal. In going through a lot more files, I see there are some jpeg files damaged as well. It is kind of bizarre to me that some of the ones that were corrupted on the old laptop are now fine on the new laptop. I don't think that is ever going to be solved.

One last trick I thought of is to run a deep scan on the old hard drive to see if I can recover anything that isn't corrupted. All of the files on that machine came from another laptop - I sent most via Pando and some via Dropbox. I deleted the zip files, so if I can recover them, there's a small flicker of hope.

If that works, great. If not, I'll get over it. I think I'll be backing up to both an off-site and an external from now on and doing a survey for any bizarre file types on a more regular basis so I can catch it sooner if I run into the problem again.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU all for the help with this!!

 

[Britton30]

Just thinking, but I can't see how changing a file type's association would effect the file itself. I would have though by putting them on a "normal" PC they would have been fine. I might suggest you run some comprehensive scans on it.

 

[JHarts]

Just thinking, but I can't see how changing a file type's association would effect the file itself. I would have though by putting them on a "normal" PC they would have been fine. I might suggest you run some comprehensive scans on it.

Scans like virus scans? I never even thought to do that!

 

[Britton30]

Yes, virus/,malware scans. See my sig for links to MalwareBytes and Super AntiSpyware. Download and update each and run separate scans with each. Make sure you install the FREE version, not the Trial.
This is a good, free, online scanner too, Free Online Virus Scanner | ESET

This is an offline scanner which is good if something remains. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/166445-windows-defender-offline.html#post1424613