Trying to delete a shortcut freezes Explorer? 1

[esmithbda]

I have never seen this one before.

I have a shortcut on my desktop which points to an EXE on a remote server. That server recently went to server heaven with a faulty motherboard, so it is no longer a valid shortcut.

If I right-click on the shortcut (on my machine's desktop), it gives me an hourglass and freezes Explorer. If I kill off the Explorer process, it dies out and does not come back. I need to either log off and then login again, or restart the machine.

If I highlight the shortcut and press the Delete key, the same thing happens.

I can right-click, right-click delete, and highlight delete any other file/shortcut on my machine - but not this one. The key difference is that it points to a machine which is no longer on the network (and is too dead to bring back).

Were I the only one that had this problem, I wouldn't care, I would just leave it there and move on with life. But I have users who also have this shortcut and will need an updated one on their desktop (it points to a networked phonebook app which has been moved to a new fileserver).
The concept of "not touching" the old shortcut is beyond the grasp of my users, so I need to remove it from their desktop - but if it freezes their system, then I can't go that route.

Anyone have any suggestions? I have never seen such a thing and I'm baffled.

This is Windows XP, SP2, with all current patches. No viruses (multiple anti-virus and anti-spyware scans all turning up with nothing).

 

[bcastner]

Delete it in Safe Mode.

 

[esmithbda]

bcastner, yup, if I go into Safe Mode (without networking, since the issue appears to be it trying to resolve the shortcut to a machine that is not on the network), then I can delete the file with no issues.

The problem is that I have an office full of machines which have this shortcut on their desktops. To do a walkaround to remove that file via Safe Mode is... not convenient.

Is there any other way?

 

[bcastner]

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=dellater

Tips:

. place in %windir%\system32 so that it will be found
. fully path the target file. Remember to use " " if the path contains spaces

Use the logon script to push out the file and a command line to it to delete the stubborn file.

You could PsExec this:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/psexec.shtml

 

[esmithbda]

Thanks bcastner, I was not familiar with either of those programs - they look like they will be very helpful for this. Thanks!