Taskbar Shortcuts Stopped Working

[dave99]

Windows 7 Ultimate, system has a folder with several shortcuts, assigned as a Taskbar toolbar.

This worked fine, click the shortcut on the Taskbar to launch an app or drive volume, etc.

The problem happened when I used Control Panel - Default Programs - Set Your Default Programs, choose Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition, and choose to make it the default program for all types and protocols it handles.

The list of types and protocols listed are these:

Extensions: .htm .html .shtml .xht .xhtml
Protocols: FTP HTTP HTTPS

This is the only change made to the system, and now clicking those Taskbar shortcuts does nothing. Ironically if I browse to the folder the shortcuts are in, and click them, they work fine still. What has changed and what do I need to do to make them work again when shown on the Taskbar?

If I go into Control panel - Default Programs - Set Associations, the .lnk (shortcut) association now shows unknown application. This does not seem as straight forward as assigning that to Explorer, because some are applications, even internet URLs. Can anyone tell me what their Current Default is for the .lnk files or otherwise how to fix this issue?

I tried setting .lnk to Explorer, and then it disappeared off the list entirely, scrambled the order of those shortcuts, changed their position, and their icons, then when clicking on one, nothing happens except the cursor is rapidly flashing it's busy cursor symbol, perpetually, launching new Explorer process instances.

Might be easier to just restore a partition backup unless someone has some idea what happened in the first place?

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, just restored the partition backup, everything working normal again, went back into Control Panel - Default Programs - Set Associations, and the .lnk association still reads Description - Shortcut, Current Default - Unknown application, so apparently that wasn't something I needed to try changing.

I still don't understand it, how trying to change the associations for Firefox Portable messed up seemingly unrelated windows settings and didn't even allow shortcuts that were URLs to work. When I had right-clicked on those shortcuts on the Taskbar, it didn't even bring up the Properties for the shortcut like it normally does and still did when viewing them in a folder with Explorer, instead brought up Properties for the Taskbar.

Heh, this isn't the first time that a partition backup has saved me from myself.