What happened?
Actually, it isn't true that rebooting restores the icon. It is restored as soon as you run Origin - you just don't see it yet.
Like many Windows applications, Origin sets up certain Registry keys on Startup so that Windows features like drag-and-drop and OLE instancing will work properly. The specific key that handles the OPJ, ORG and OGG file icon is in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Origin50.Graph\DefaultIcon for Origin 5.0, 6.0 and 6.1. This key's value will point to your EXE and adds information about which icon to use. For example,
C:\Program Files\Origin\Origin61.exe,2
The 2nd icon is the one we normally see while the zeroth icon is the standard EXE icon. While this particular key isn't necessary to operation, it is updated along with the other keys whenever Origin starts.
So what does Windows do?
When Windows starts, it caches icons used by file types in memory. (Actually, it does a poor job of maintaining this cache and programmers at Microsoft wrote 'Tweak' to fix some problems that occur with this cache.) You can edit this cache using the Explorer applet that handles File Types. (This is probably where coll@inia changed the icon.) The applet does two things:- Changes the Registry Keys
- Updates the internal cache (which tells Explorer to redraw)
You can edit the Registry keys either manually or using a REG file, but the cache does not get updated (unless you also run 'Tweak').
You also 'edit' the Registry when you run Origin, but the cache does not update here either.
Any 'solution' to this problem would have to involve a third-party application of some kind (Explorer's Edit File Types applet, 'Tweak' or ????) which runs immediately after Origin starts and not only changes the registry key, but also updates the internal cache.