.exe files not working in windows xp

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Guest

My grandson crashed my machine. The only programs that I can get to open at
all are internet explorer and outlook express. I have rebooted in safe mode,
tried a good configuration, tried to run scans etc...nothing will open at
all. Need help
 
I can hear the desperation in your writing.

Unfortunately, "crashed my machine" doesn't begin to explain what
happened, and without knowing exactly what happened it's impossible to
know how to fix it.

You should bring your machine to a technician -- someone who can watch
what's happening to your computer and hopefully know if and how it can
be repaired.

Or you can backup all your data, erase your hard disk and start over. If
you can't get your computer to work properly, you can still get your
data out by installing your hard disk as the second disk in another
computer. Then you use the good copy of XP to copy your data to the good
hard disk.

To prevent this from happening in the future:

1 - Never allow anyone other than yourself to log into your own account.
Either create a separate account or use the built-in Guest account.
2 - Never allow anyone other than yourself to have an account with
Administrator status. It's more difficult to harm a computer when you
don't have Administrator permissions on the machine.
3 - Backup regularly, every day if possible. That way, no matter what
happens you won't lose your own data. Later you can learn how to backup
Windows and all your software with a technique called disk imaging.
 
I wasn't here when it happened, so I honestly don't have a clue, my daughter
was here using it and she had to check on one of the other children in
another room, then she walked in on him, he had put a spiderman game in,
which was loading, she said everything locked up, she didn't know what to do
or how to get out of it, so she hit ctrl/alt/del and that didn't work, so she
hit the reset button and shut it down. I have tried everything and searched
the knowledge base for answers to no avail. All I get from the event viewers
is that the memory was overloaded and needed to be dumped, well a reboot
should have done that. I did purchase another hard drive earlier today and
was hoping in a last ditch effort not to have to go that route but how could
he/they have removed all the paths for all the programs to run is beyond me.
All the executable files have just dissappeared and when you try to associate
one with it's program it won't load up.
Thanks for your help and time.
 
3 - Backup regularly,


A strong second to that statement, for almost everyone!

every day if possible.


But I don't agree with that one. How often to back up depends on how
much you use your computer, and what you use it for. Every day may be
great for some people, but overkill for others. I have one friend who
only turns his computer on once every week or two.

Here's my standard blurb on how often to backup:

"It takes time and effort to backup, but it also takes time and effort
to recreate lost data. If you back up daily, you should never have to
recreate more than one day's worth of last data. If weekly, there's
potentially a lot more to recreate. You should assess how much pain
and trouble you would have if you lost x days of data, and then choose
a backup frequency that doesn't involve more pain and trouble than
that you would have if you had to recreate what was lost.

Some things (photographs, for instance) can never be recreated, and
more frequent backup may be wanted for them.

At one extreme is the professional user who would likely go out of
business if his data was lost. He probably needs to back up at least
daily. At the other extreme is the kid who doesn't use his computer
except to play games. He probably needs no backup at all, since worst
case he can easily reinstall his games.

Most of us fall somewhere between those extremes, but nobody can tell
you where you fall; you need to determine that for yourself."
 
I found a link to Doug Knox's website in another thread that was similar to
mine and corrected the problem using the fixes. They worked. Thanks Doug.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

The kids have a account on this machine, it was just in my account as my
daughter was doing some things the kids usually don't have access to. I had
not backed up in a while and won't let that one get past me again.
Thank Guys.
 
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