Notification Area does not have a file associated with it

Ellis Dee · 04 May 2016

I just installed a second hard drive for data, leaving my C: drive for just the OS and programs.

Not wanting to go crazy with sysprep, I decided to just move my special folders the approved way: Properties => Location. This was going swimmingly until I got to AppData\Local. Apparently those files are in use and can't be moved, throwing an "Access Denied" error. No problem, I choose to move the location without moving files, reboot, and now that the files in the old local appdata aren't locked I copy them over to the new local appdata location, skipping any files that are open. (Copy, not move, meaning I have a safety valve of all my local appdata files still sitting in the default location.) I don't particularly care about my local appdata settings; it's roaming that has the good stuff. So whatever gets skipped is fine by me.

Anyway, all that went fine, local appdata was successfully moved to the D: drive, all good. I did notice that my systray icon settings seem to have been lost, though. The icons I set to "Always Show" had been reverted to only show for notifications. So I right-clicked the taskbar, chose Properties and clicked the Customize button next to Notifications. This throws a "file not associated" error.

Thinking that maybe moving local appdata might be too much for the system, I restored it to the default location, again not moving files. Reboot, so now I'm exactly where I was before moving it in the first place: Local appdata is back in C:, and all the local appdata files are what they were. My systray icons are back to my preferred settings, so all is good. But that button still throws an error.

Reboot again, still the same problem: You don't have a file associated with this type. After googling to find out what the actual command line is that's being executed, I try both in the run dialog.

This throws the same error as clicking the button:
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 5

This works fine:
explorer shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}

My conclusion is that I need to add a registry key for some file association that will make that first command line work. Anyone know what it is I need to add?

Here's a screen grab:

Notification Area does not have a file associated with it-notification-area.png

I'm also thinking that I can move Local AppData back to D:, since this problem is still there even with them on C:. I figure move to D:, fix the problem, and I'm good to go.

philc43 · 04 May 2016

Here are registry screenshots for my ms-settings:notifications entry:

Notification Area does not have a file associated with it-2016-05-04-1-.png

Notification Area does not have a file associated with it-2016-05-04.png

Not sure if this will help?

Ellis Dee · 04 May 2016

Nice, thanks much for the screen shots. Unfortunately that's the same as I have, so nothing to try there.

Looking more closely at the shortcut command that throws the same error, I searched HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT for "Options_RunDLL" and came up with several hits, but no "5"s. Just 0s and 1s. Testing the various values with the Run dialog:

%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 0 <== opens Folder options, General tab
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 1 <== opens Taskbar options, Taskbar tab
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 2 <== opens Folder options, Search tab
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 3 <== opens Taskbar options, Taskbar tab (same as 1?)
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 4 <== "no program associated" error
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 5 <== "no program associated" error
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 6 <== opens Taskbar options, Toolbars tab
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 7 <== opens Folder options, View tab
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 8 <== opens Taskbar options, Navigation tab

9 and 10 do nothing; the run command is ignored entirely with no error message or effect. So it's looking like just 0 through 8. It seems weird that 1 and 3 do the same thing, but whatever.

Could you try 4 and 5 and let me know what they do so I can figure out what I need to create alternate shortcuts for? That way even if I never fix it I'll at least have a workaround.

philc43 · 04 May 2016

Both 4 and 5 open the System Notifications Area so that is consistent with what you have been finding.

f14tomcat · 04 May 2016

Ellis Dee said:

I just installed a second hard drive for data, leaving my C: drive for just the OS and programs.

Not wanting to go crazy with sysprep, I decided to just move my special folders the approved way: Properties => Location. This was going swimmingly until I got to AppData\Local. Apparently those files are in use and can't be moved, throwing an "Access Denied" error. No problem, I choose to move the location without moving files, reboot, and now that the files in the old local appdata aren't locked I copy them over to the new local appdata location, skipping any files that are open. (Copy, not move, meaning I have a safety valve of all my local appdata files still sitting in the default location.) I don't particularly care about my local appdata settings; it's roaming that has the good stuff. So whatever gets skipped is fine by me.

Anyway, all that went fine, local appdata was successfully moved to the D: drive, all good. I did notice that my systray icon settings seem to have been lost, though. The icons I set to "Always Show" had been reverted to only show for notifications. So I right-clicked the taskbar, chose Properties and clicked the Customize button next to Notifications. This throws a "file not associated" error.

Thinking that maybe moving local appdata might be too much for the system, I restored it to the default location, again not moving files. Reboot, so now I'm exactly where I was before moving it in the first place: Local appdata is back in C:, and all the local appdata files are what they were. My systray icons are back to my preferred settings, so all is good. But that button still throws an error.

Reboot again, still the same problem: You don't have a file associated with this type. After googling to find out what the actual command line is that's being executed, I try both in the run dialog.

This throws the same error as clicking the button:
%SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Options_RunDLL 5

This works fine:
explorer shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}

My conclusion is that I need to add a registry key for some file association that will make that first command line work. Anyone know what it is I need to add?

Here's a screen grab:

I'm also thinking that I can move Local AppData back to D:, since this problem is still there even with them on C:. I figure move to D:, fix the problem, and I'm good to go.

If your intention was to move the location of your User folders (your profile name), then this tutorial would be the way to proceed. If so, suggest you put everything back the way it was before and do an image backup first.

Users Folder - Move Location in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Ellis Dee · 04 May 2016

Moving the users folder is undocumented and unsupported, though of course it's possible using sysprep.

I'd prefer to just stick with supported features. Moving certain special folders by going to folder properties => location tab is the officially supported methodology, and it's available for local appdata.

philc43 said:

Both 4 and 5 open the System Notifications Area so that is consistent with what you have been finding.

Cool, thanks much. If the only problem I have is that I have to roll my own shortcut to manage systray notifications, no harm no foul. I already use custom shortcuts for a bunch of standard windows features anyway, so adding one more is trivial.

Notification Area does not have a file associated with it-start-menu-system-.png

Still, if anyone happens to know a way to fix this issue or stumbles across a fix in the future, I'm definitely interested.

Ellis Dee · 04 May 2016

Actually, would system restore mess up anything?

I have two restore points available, both automatics. (Which annoys me. My manual restore points appear to have been automatically thrown away, which doesn't seem logical. I made them for a reason.)

One restore point is from today, the other from early last week. Since early last week I added a second hard drive and moved my documents, music, downloads, pictures, video, appdata\low, and appdata\local (and then moved it back to default) over to it. And all of that was done today. If I restore to last week, would anything major get messed up, do you think?

I've never done a system restore before. Manually set restore points, but never used them.

Ellis Dee · 04 May 2016

Gah!

Right clicking the desktop, both "Display Settings" and "Personalize" are throwing the same error.

Time to cross my fingers and try a restore point. Wish me luck!

philc43 · 04 May 2016

Restore point should work fine. Good luck!

Ellis Dee · 04 May 2016

Yep, that did the trick nicely. Notifications, Personalize and Display settings all work fine now.

It was REALLY slow, though. It sat at that blue "initializing restore" screen for like 15 minutes, so I just left it running and did other, non-computer stuff. Coming back to it now, all is well. So it took anywhere from 16 minutes to four hours. heh.

Notification Area does not have a file associated with it

Notification Area does not have a program associated with it