Vista Tutorial - 'Weird' Icons in C:\Windows, C:\Program files, etc

I don't know if anyone else has ever had this 'problem', but here goes.

I have just got a new Vista Home Premium (living room) pc - a Philips
freevents LX3000 - last thursday 28th june - part of my problem is that I am
a user of AOL Broadband, so I installed AOL 9.0VR using the icon in 'welcome
centre'. This installation also installs (by default) something called
Viewpoint Media Player into 'Programs and Features', as well as something
else called viewpoint manager (an 'essential component' of viewpoint media
player, apparently) into control panel.

The actual problem is that the icons for both the viewpoint media player and
veiwpoint manager are 'deadlink' icons', by default i.e. they look like a
blank white page with the top right hand corner folded over, rather than
whatever the proper icon should look like, or at least that is what I have
been told they should be called, by some so called expert at the pc world
tech support company (PC PERFORMANCE). While this may or may not be a problem
at the moment I have also found more than two dozen (and counting) other
files or folders which I have not deleted or altered in any way, in several
places in program files AND in windows and other places that have also got
icons that are allegedly 'deadlink icons'.

Regarding the viewpoint icons I have twice tried to re-install the viewpoint
media player directly from the viewpoint website, and once more as part of
the re-installation of AOL 9.0VR, after each time that I had 'uninstalled'
it. The only reason uninstalled it in the first place, was because despite it
being installed with AOL 9.0VR by default (I did not know this untill AFTER I
had uninstalled the first time)there is no listed publisher for it in
'Programs and Features' and immediately after the installation and
reinstallation of AOL 9.0VR the icons for both the viewpoint media player and
viewpoint manager are already 'deadlink icons', and it is that which made me
think that it might be a 'dodgy program'.

I have tried to remove the Viewpoint Manager icon from control panel by
deleting the Viewpoint folder from C:\Program files - after using
'uninstall/change' in Programs and Features - but this action did nothing to
that icon, so it was still in control panel even when the viewpoint media
player was supposedly deleted from my pc. Both the other uninstalls as well
as reinstalls of the player via viewpoint website have done nothing to change
the viewpoint manager icon in control panel, which refuses to change from a
'deadlink icon' to a proper icon, or even be deleted along with its
'associated application'. Upon re-installation of the said application
'Viewpoint Media Player', the only noticable change is that the icon for the
player in Program and Features (only after installing the player from the
viewpoint website) actually looks like it should.

I have no idea what kind of problem this may cause in the future regarding
the performance or behaviour of my pc, or even IF it will have any effect,
but as I have seen this kind of icon many times before, but relating to
office data files and to other kinds of files stored on one or both of my
external hard drives (when they were connected to my XP Home Ed' laptop pc),
I happen to know that icons can have this appearance when the files that they
relate to have lost their 'link' to the registry entry that relates to the
application on the internal hard drive that relates to those same files, if
that same application has been deleted from the internal hard drive or has
been corrupted or if the pc has had to have another full system recovery.

I also know that in my case these same ofice data files will get their
proper icons back when you re-install the same application again after system
recovery. What I am trying to get information about is how or why these
several files have ended up with 'deadlink' icons and if there is some way to
get them to have their 'proper' appearance - whatever that is - without
another system recovery, as I only bought the pc on thursday 28th june and
already had to do one on saturday or sunday as - yet again system restore on
the same day did not work - or at least got a message box saying that the
computer could not complete or do a system restore at all and did not even
give me the option of choosing another restore point in the same or previous
one or two days. System restore also NEVER worked once on my XP laptop in
three and a half years after more than 20 attempts.

I have even tried to use 'Viewpoint Killer' which AOL recommended I get from
'softpedia.com' and use to 'properly remove' vierwpoint - this did not work
either.

Looks like I am going to have to do second full system recovery when I
haven't owned the pc for a week yet!

Any and all help is much appreciated.

Rob Watt

pc specs:

Philips LX3000 'freevents/easylife' (living room pc)
Win' Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Duo
2048Mb RAM
'250Gb' (actually 227Gb) HDD
all default software plus a couple of 'sidebar gadgets'
plus
Ms Office 2003 student/teacher
Works 8.5
Norton Internet Security 2007
AOL 9.0VR
AOL Anti-Spyware 2.0
iTunes 7.3 plus latest versions of iPod Nano software and Quicktime
Java Runtime Environtment 6.0 (latest version?)