CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

2.4. Application Install, Start, and Load Failures

From time to time, you will have applications that will not start. A few reasons for this problem include corrupted or damaged shortcuts, damaged program information file (PIF) settings, or corrupted memory space. In the following sections, I take a closer look at these three types of errors as well as application installation errors.

2.4.1. Corrupted shortcuts

When you create a shortcut to a program, the shortcut records information about the target file, such as size and creation date. If something happens to the original file, such as being moved to another directory, the shortcut will attempt to search the hard drive and repair the shortcut. In Windows 2000, you will be prompted to verify that the correct file was found, as shown in Figure 2-5. If you are using Windows XP or newer OSes, automatic link tracking is enabled on shortcuts. What this means to you is that unless the file was deleted — in which case you will be asked to delete the shortcut — your shortcut links will always work, no matter how much you move a target file.

Do not always choose to delete damaged shortcuts because Windows will report that a file is missing if your files are on a network server but you are disconnected from the network. If you reconnect to the network, your shortcut should work again. In the worst case, you have to re-create the shortcut ...