Parallels 9 broke Control Panel, Trash in Windows 7

Hi everyone,
My copy of Windows 7 Pro was working fine with no problems for many months … until today, when I upgraded to Parallels 9. After the install was complete, and then Parallels Tools installed succesfully and Win 7 restarted once again, I noticed that when I click on either CONTROL PANELS in the Start Menu, or select EMPTY on the Recycle Bin's contextual menu, I get an error telling me that "the file does not have a program associated with it." I've tried running registry cleaner / fixer utilities, but with no luck. And unlike the Mac I don't know of a system-wide command that'll simply reset everything. Annoying, but not tragic. Some help would be appreciated.

 

Have you tried manually uninstalling Parallels Tools from the Programs control panel (if you can open it)? If you can't open, maybe if you boot into safe mode and then run it, you'll be able to uninstall and then reinstall Parallels Tools.

Steve

 

Hi Steve,
I used Start Menu properties to view CONTROL PANEL as a list instead of a link -- and now I can access individual panels. Going to the PROGRAMS panel, I was able to uninstall Parallels Tools, then restarted, then RE-INSTALLED Parallels Tools, then went back to Start Menu properties and changed CONTROL PANEL back to "show as a link." AND … no difference. I still get the "there is no program associated with this …" error. So I went back to SHOW AS A LIST. As I said, it's not tragic. It only makes me uncomfortable because it used to work before Parallels 9, and doesn't now.