How to get Wordpad back

[Eaglefeather]

I recently did a defrag of my harddrive and a few day later notice that the Calculator and Wordpad were missing from Start/Programs/Accessories.

My OS is XP Home.

I first tried getting Wordpad back using the XP Home disk, but had no luck.

I did a search of the threads in this forum for information on how to retrieve these two programs but was only able to find info on getting the Calculator back. I found calc.exe, made a shortcut and pasted it into Accessories and it works fine.

I then tried doing a search of C:/ for MSWordpad, wrdpd, wdpd, wpd, etc., with no luck. I then made a manual search through all of the files in System 32, but again didn't find anything that looked like it might be the .exe file for the program.

I use Wordpad a lot and want it back, would appreciate any help you can provide.

Cheers,
Rob

[Ray_S]

Hi

The path you want is:- "C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe" This is where the exe file is.

Hope this helps

Ray_s

[KilluminatiStyle]

I think the bigger question here is why did the defrag kill your data. I'd do the following.

Backup any important data.

Download and install a hard drive diagnostic utility. Preferably one from your hard drives manufacturer but you could just use SeaTools for Windows. Do a quick test and if it passes do a long test. If that passes then move on. If it fails, replace your hard drive asap.

If the diagnostic comes back O.K. click on the start menu and go to run. Type CHKDSK /R and click OK. You should see something on your screen waiting for you to choose YES or NO. Choose YES and reboot your computer. When it reboots it should do a full 5 step check disk which will scan for and attempt to fix any corruption found.

Once the check disk is done see if your WORDPAD.exe files is back. If it is, yay. If it isn't, move on.

If the files you're looking for are still AWOL then I'd suggest that you do a simple REPAIR INSTALL of the operating system, if you have the disc available. Just boot off the CD and at the first blue screen where you have 3 options, "Enter" to continue,"R" to repair, and "F3" to quit.

***DO NOT HIT "R" YET***

You want to hit enter here. The next screen will ask you to press "F8" to accept, do it and NOW you will be at the screen we are looking for. It should show your existing installation of windows highlighted and there will be an option at the bottom for you to repair. Choose that option and from here it's just like doing an install of Windows but your applications will still be there.


**NOTE**

There is a chance that some apps could get broken after the repair is done, usually things like antivirus and anything else requiring a subscription. Just remove those apps and reinstall. Also you will have to hit the Microsoft Update site pretty heavy since all update since your disc was made are now gone from your PC.

[Eaglefeather]

Ray S: Thank you! I wonder why the windows search couldn't find it?

KilluminatiStyle: I will download the Seatools for Windows file as you suggest. I cannot do that until late at night because I am currently on a very, very slow dial-up connection and during the day, it keeps disconnecting. I get much better service late at night. The file is 10mgs and that will take close to 2hours to download.

Not sure if your suggestions must be done in the exact order you show or not, but I went ahead and tried the chkdsk /r. It performed the checks, everything was ok but the Wordpad shortcut is still missing.

I will wait until after I have downloaded and run the seatools disk check before attempting to use the XP disk to repair windows.

Thank you for the help.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Is it just the shortcut that is missing or is the entire wordpad.exe gone? If it is just the shortcut then you can probably forgo the the seatools bit. I was under the impression that you were actually missing data. That being said... it's still strange that the defrag would cause you to lose anything... even if it is just a shortcut.