All my shortcuts on the desktop became inactive. I placed new ones, however they won't open either.My os is w98se.The desktop is in active mode.Never had this problem before.Thanks.Irene

Not sure if this is what you mean by inactive, but they all just disappeared? If this is the case, you likely just recently activated "active desktop". To turn this off, go to control panel, display, then the web tab. If "view my active desktop as a web page" is checked, then uncheck it, and let me know if this did the trick.

Atomicboy, All the icons are still there, however clicking or doubleclicking will not open them. (the shortcuts to installed applications still work ok, but all the ones to html pages do not!)

If I right click on any blank space of this webpage and select 'create shortcut' a desktop icon appears on my desktop. If I right click on the new desktop icon and select properties it opens to the tab for 'Web Document' and I find the path as http://computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/102825.html Try doing this to see if it works or not. If not then: Right click on one of the non-working shortcuts to see what the path is. Is something missing in the path? If all is in order then you may need to reassociate the file type. To reassociate the file type; double click on My Computer, go to View, Folder Options, File Types, scroll down to Internet Shortcut and doubleclick 'Open' to display it's properties. You should find the command to be rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l (above was copied and pasted directly from the box) If this does not do the trick post back. Bryan

Better update virus definitions and run a full scan. It sounds like the Navidad virus.

Thanks guys for all your help.You are great! It turned out I lost IE6 as my default browser.(Why?) Once I reconfigured IE as default it started to work again. Irene