Shortcut corrupt?

Does it work OK on any other PC?

i havent actually saved the shortcut on the laptop. anyway, the shortcut is calibrated for internet explorer. i havent launched IE since this problem first started, and am now using firefox. opening the same webpage on firefox gives no trouble

By calibrated you mean the shortcut is set to open in I.E.? It has iexporer.exe in the shortcut? Or was it just because I.E. was the default browser? What version of I.E.?
If you copy and paste the shortcut to I.E. manually does it work? Try it on another computer. Just go to the web page directly, don't need to save the shortcut.

Are you even looking to fix this even or will just use Firefox?

to tell you the truth, i havent been using IE since then. yes about the shortcut opens in IE, IE 8. the webpage opened in IE on my laptop

Have you tried just creating a new shortcut?

If it's still an issue, check the event viewer to see if it's logging an error. If you're satisfied using FF, then I wouldn't worry about it.