Hi, Bob,
I doubt that anyone can offer an effective "interesting
thought" on how to solve the problem without more specific
information. The OP states that he is 'pretty good with
computers' and that statement combined with "accidentally
erased' raises questions in my mind as to exactly what
happened. For example, was he deleting 'unnecessary' files
in various folders and really did delete the WMP.exe file by
accident? Or perhaps he only turned off its functioning by
using features/programs. Perhaps he accidentally deleted it
from the start menu or did something else that affected it.
Unless the OP explains exactly what he was doing when he
'accidentally erased' it then any advice given is based only
on assumption, and is at best, a shot in the dark.
I'm sure you realize by now that many of the requests for
assistance in here are from relatively new computer users
with little technical knowledge about computers and who, as
a result, often use inexact, or incorrect, terminology and
often do not clearly describe the details of what the exact
problem is and/or how it occurred. In this case, we know
what the problem is (WMP doesn't work anymore) but we don't
really know how it came about. The answer to 'how it came
about' is the key to finding the solution.
So, my question to the OP is: Exactly what were you doing at
the time this happened and why do you think that you
accidentally erased the program?
Hobo