Daughter puts Dad in desktop dilemma

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Question: I have Internet Explorer 4 installed on my system. Somehow my daughter fooled around with the system and I now have Active Desktop on my Settings panel. How do I turn this off? Also, I can no longer click on a link in my e-mail; the link is highlighted but when I click on it nothing happens. — PJD

Answer: Sounds like your daughter flipped a switch using the right-click function on the mouse. She’s clearly an advanced child.
To turn Active Desktop off again, right-click on an empty space on your desktop and uncheck the Active Desktop setting.
Or if you prefer to remove it completely, go to the Control Panel and select Add/Remove Programs. Then click on Microsoft Internet Explorer and choose Remove Windows Desktop Update.

As for your link problem, that’s slightly more complicated. Somehow, the .htm and .html files (which are hypertext documents in links) are no longer associated with IE 4.0.
The simple solution is to reinstall the browser.
The more complicated answer is to re-associate them via Windows Explorer. To do this:

  1. Open Windows Explorer and from the View menu, select Options and then click the File Types tab.
  2. Click New Type then fill in the following information:
    • Description of type: Hypertext documents;
    • Associated extension: htm, html;
    • Leave the “Content Type” field blank;
  3. Then click New under the “Actions” field.
  4. In the dialog box that pops up type open in the Action field and click the Browse button to navigate through your directories to “iexplore.exe”. You’ll likely find that at “c:program filesmicrosoft internet”. Finally, keep clicking OK until you get out of the application.
  5. Restart Windows.