Question: All of my desktop shortcut icons on Windows 7 have changed to Notepad icons.

How do I get my old icons back?

Answer: 
The simplest and quickest way I found is on 
[this forum](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/undo-file-association-for-lnk-extension-to/f13b105e-8ea3-47e4-aeda-66f8fc1e839d?rtAction=1401615592302).

This simply says to delete all the keys for **.lnk** extension. The procedure is:

* Press *[Win + R]* to open *run* and then type `regedit` and hit *ENTER*
* Go to the **HKEY\_CURRENT\_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.lnk** folder
* Remove every subfolder (called *keys* in *regedit*) and the keys they contain
* Now restart the PC

Now everything works fine.
Right click the icon that is appearing in wrong format.
(You need to find out the file location that is wrong.)
This will help if all your icons have changed to Notepad, Adobe or whatever.
The file location will say either `.lnk`, `.exe`, `.jpeg` and so on.
This is called a registry error.

Here's how to fix it.

* Click the start button on the bottom left of the computer screen.
* Type `regedit` in the search box.
* Click yes if it pops up.
* then go to `HKEY_CURRENT_USER`
	+ Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Current Version -> Explorer -> File Exts
* Then, find what extension all your icons are showing up as, whether its `.lnk`, `.exe` and double click on it.
* Right click `User Choice` then delete it.
* Click yes.
* You will need to restart your computer and then
all of your icons will be back to normal.