Double click on internet explorer, makes a shortcut to internet explorer.

[btcomm1]

Not a vital issue but very strange. Double click on the internet explorer icon on the desktop and instead of opening internet explorer it creates a shortcut to internet explorer on the desktop.

 

[Silx]

What this sounds like to me, is the 'default' operation for clicking on an item has somehow been changed to the context-menu option of 'create shortcut'. Now, I'm sure it's easily changed back in the registry somewhere.. but I'm not sure where. I'll get back to you if I find anything.

Edit: You're in luck.
At a run line, type the following:

regsvr32 /i shell32

What I believe this does is re-installs and therefore resets the windows shell to its default settings. I have not tested this myself, so beware of that. Let me know how it goes!

 

[Slikkster]

Here are some specific IE fixes. You may not have all of these files, but try the commands, anyway. Then, I would reboot after running all and see if it fixed the issue.

Start-->Run-->regsvr32 urlmon.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Shdocvw.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Msjava.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Actxprxy.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Oleaut32.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Mshtml.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Browseui.dll
Start-->Run-->regsvr32 Shell32.dll