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[hewlett]

I'm organizing a few things on my new laptop right now, and one thing that's annoyed me in the past with installing Windows programs is that, when they show up on the Start Menu, they'll wind up buried in a directory and subdirectory (for example, "Start Menu -> [Company Name] -> [Program Name] -> [Program Shortcut]").

In past versions of Windows, I've had no problem at all just moving these shortcuts around (out of their subdirectories, renaming them, and using them, so I went ahead and did it with my Windows 7 Start Menu items, as well. Everything was honky-dory for about ten minutes, too, then I started noticing things.

The items I had pinned to my Taskbar and Start Menu no longer showed their default program icons; just a generic "file" icon that pointed to the program, instead. The same was true for the items in the Start Menu, too, after I had moved them out of their original subdirectories; there were no actual icons on them, anymore.

Interestingly enough, the shortcuts still actually work (for example, when I click the "VLC Media Player" shortcut either on my Taskbar, Start Menu, or Programs Menu, it still opens VLC Media Player). There's just no cool-looking icon anymore.

So, I figured I could just edit the properties of the original shortcut in the Programs Menu to use the icon again, then re-pin the shortcut to the Start Menu and the Taskbar. No big deal.
I go to the shortcut properties, click "Change Icon", and select the program's actual, default icon again. Even if it's the only icon actually available for me to click on, by default, and even if it's already selected (both are true in all cases, by the way), I still click on it and click "OK".
Nothing happens.
The icon doesn't change back. It doesn't change to anything. It just stays as the dumb-looking generic white-document-looking-thing with the gibberish in the middle. All of the program shortcuts that have this problem, do this.

So, I restarted for good measure, and they all stayed the same. I tried changing the icons again after restarting, but the same thing happens - which is nothing.

How can I make these program shortcuts show their original icons again?