Internet Shortcuts Not Working

I am running Win XP Pro and SP2 with Firefox as my default browser. I have always had a few internet shortcuts on my desktop for quick access to websites. I am now finding that they no longer work. I have tried looking at the registered file types and they are shown as "Internet Shortcut" with the url extension. I have tried changing the default browser back from Firefox to IE6 but that seems to treat the url file as a normal file and does not even open IE6. Having changed back to Firefox it now opens the url file as a text file in the Firefox browser. Double clicking a a url shortcut in my file manager has the same effect.
I am not sure when this started happening but it did work at some time before I installed SP2. Searching google has not come up with the answer although Microsoft did have a patch cure for NT.
Any ideas.
Dennis

 

When you right click on the desktop, under "arrange icons by ", is "Lock web items on desktop" ticked? If not, tick it, if it is, try toggling it. Post back if that doesn't help.

Johanna

 

Thanks Johanna, but it was not ticked. I tried ticking it but that made no difference I also toggled it but no change. It still opens the url file as a text in the Firefox Browser.
Dennis

 

Go to a webpage, right click and "send to desktop" (let XP create a shortcut on your desktop) see if that one works. If it does, then perhaps your shortcuts went south and just need recreated. If it doesn't, we're gonna have to dig a little deeper.

Johanna

 

Try the Doug Knox Internet Shortcut fix.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/fileassoc/xp_url_shortcut_fix.zip

Unzip to its own folder and double click the .reg file within and OK the process.

 

Johanna,
The "send to" on a web page did not work (I had already tried it).

Surferdude2,
The Dough Knox fix worked a treat. Very many thanks to you both.

Dennis