All of my shortcuts do not work, and all of my programs will not launch even when I double-click the exe file. Windows always asks what program I want to open the files with. When my computer boots up I get asked which program I want to open my start up programs with...they are all .ink files. Even when I run Explorer.exe from the task manager it asks me! So, something has gone quite wrong. I did a little "Spring cleaning" and I deleted a lot of crap from my registry (stuff that I'm sure was safe to delete) but after restarting my computer, this stuff started happening. Regedit no longer opens (as I've mentioned, Windows asks me which program I want to open it with) so I can't manually inspect it, and of course none of my repair programs are able to start. I'm actually quite shocked that I was able to get online - the IE icon doesn't work, but I was able to get a browser window open by double-clicking a html file that I had on the hard disk. I should also mention that I defragged my C: drive with Norton Speed Disk, and it could have been that which made a cock-up of everything, because it was the last program I ran before restarting the computer.

Does anyone know what I can do? Keeping in mind that exe files don't work, and regedit doesn't work.

I think this calls for a total re-install...*sigh* GOD I hate re-installing Windows! Luckily I have a copy which has been slipstreamed with the latest updates etc, so it won't be so bad this time round...but I'd really appreciate if someone could thik of something! lol

P.S Via My Computer, I can access the file types settings, and I tried re-associating programs and files, but the programs that I assopciated the files with also need to be associated with something, which left me kinda stumped...