All program links (icons, menu items) try to use Adobe Reader to run them

Question

My mother was opening Internet Mail to check her mail on her new Windows 7 PC and a pop-up window asked her if she wanted to use Adobe Reader as the default program instead. She must have clicked yes. Now all of the Start Menu and Desktop icons have the adobe logo and appear to try and use adobe to execute the programs. Has anyone encountered this and were they able to fix it?

She tried to associate another program and ended up having the Internet Explorer icon and program replacing the Adobe icons. This woman can tear up a steel ball with a rubber mallet.

Answer 1

Here's a fix. It's a download, so make sure you check it with an antivirus, and so on.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19449-default-file-type-associations-restore.html

The downloads below will allow you to restore the Windows 7 default registry entries and program associations of the selected file extension type.

Note

This can be helpful for example when a file extension type opens with the wrong program by default, has the wrong icon, or is missing or corrupted in the registry. Downloading the .reg file for the selected file extension in the tutorial below, will restore that file extension back to default for all of these items above.