Win 7 went zombie after my changes to file-app associations

[BitHerder]

I'm new to SevenForums. Hope I'm posting this at the right place and that my questions are not already answered in some other thread. I did make an attempt to look around first.

I have a refurby Dell Optiplex 755, 8G Ram, Xeon 4Core, not attached to any net, running Win7 (my site registration info gets a little more detailed.) It has been my multitrack record/mix station for a couple years and has worked pretty well. One thing that has bugged me is that I couldn’t get it to associate certain audio files with Sony Sound Forge, which made it slightly more time- consuming to open those files. I’m no Windows expert, but I’ve been using it since 3.1 and can generally get it to do my bidding if I’m persistent. But I seem to have hit a stone wall this time.

After I made some changes in settings recently the machine has gone zombie on me. When I boot up all my program-starting icons (on desktop, QuickStartBar, even StartMenu) are uniform white rectangle w/ dented corner. Windows has no idea what they’re for. Claims I need to tell it what program opens the .lnk file. Even if I open explorer and navigate to an .exe file, 7 can’t run it. Says it needs to be told what program opens that file (again, it’s an .exe file.) Naturally you’re like, what did this joker do to screw things up so badly? As I said before, I wanted to get Win 7 to start up Sony Sound Forge when I 2-clicked on, say, a .wav file.

Yes, I know the procedure for doing that. But 7 acted like it did not know Sound Forge existed. If I went through the steps of associating .wav files with that application, I would have to browse to the executable, since 7 would not come up with it as a likely candidate for opening that type of file. Then after OK-ing all that, Windows still would not do as requested. It would continue associating .wav files with another app. I still would have to start Sound Forge and then navigate to the file to open it.

I put up with this for quite a while, but every so often I would fool around with settings, searching for the elusive solution. Anyway, long story short (OK, too late for that) I went, once more into the CPanel applet, DefaultPrograms and again made some changes, thinking, as has always previously been the case, that I could go back and change them again if I did not like the result. I may have un-associated all of the listed file types with their corresponding applications. Even so, I would not have expected this result. This is the only Win7 machine I have in the house, so I can’t go back and retrace my steps. The exact options that appear in the Control Panel applets are different than in XP or 10 and I don't remember the exact details of the changes I made. And hardly any of these applets will execute now. Hardly anything will execute, although, oddly, some sound files will now open QuickTime Player and run. (These files were not previously associated with that app.)

Another quirk which might make sense to some of you is that at bootup a small gold padlock icon appears in the notification area stating that “Windows could not connect to System Event Notification Service . . .” or words to that effect, along with a warning about the ramifications of that regarding login.

The computer is essentially unusable. It boots, but takes maybe twice as long as usual, then displays my desktop with all the icons that refer to executable applications now turned to zombies. Got my first PC in 1985 and I can’t recall ever screwing one up quite this bad. It’s embarrassing. Here are a few more observations that might provide clues to you Win7 cognoscenti.

1. There’s no problem booting into safe mode, but the same problems exist. I tried the “last good” option. It booted into the same state described above.

2. The relevant Windows utility programs, the ones accessible through Control Panel, which would allow me to go back and attempt to repair the damage, will not start. They make the same plea as any other app, applet, application or .exe: “Tell me what program I should use to open this file,” Win7 bleats. (Come on, man! It’s your damned program!)

3. No, I don’t have restore points or a backup image. Yeah, I know, that’s why I might have restore the OS and try to figure out how to get all my software to install again. (It’s complicated.) Since this machine sits all by itself and is never online, I’ve ignored some of the precautions that I generally follow on my Win 10 machines, which pretty much constantly have a browser (Chrome) running.

4. My account is the only user account. The system starts without a password, booting directly to my DAW workspace. (Used to, anyway.) I’m not positive if this user account is an admin account, but I believe it is.

I would sure like to avoid having to rebuild this system from scratch, although I will, if none of you folks can provide guidance on how to undo the snafu I’ve created.

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. If you use our rest tools that should fix it Default File Type Associations - Restore

 

[BitHerder]

Thanks, Sumeria. I'm hampered by the fact that my win7 machines is fairly helpless now and can't execute much of anything. I think the problem is deeper than what you'd expect from bad file associations.

I can get to command prompt via the restore option and can run regedit. I'm guessing that the changes I made are reflected there. Anybody know of a way to look at the registry via regedit and identify recent changes? Does regedit automatically create a backup file when you change it?

I also have several Hiren Boot CD's which get me in at various levels and provide an array of utilities. I'm still poking around in those programs, too.

 

[samuria]

If you can open revert you can restore association and see how it goes do you have a restore point you could use?

 

[BitHerder]

OK, will pursue that approach with greater persistence and report back. Only restore point almost a year old. Using it would be a last resort, since a lot of stuff has been installed since then. If I need to redo that much it might make more sense to just reinstall win7 and be clean as a whistle from that point. Again, appreciate your input.