Programs won't run

[Jim Brown]

My Wife accidently turned off the power on her system while it was in
process of shutting down and now she gets the following error when she tries
to open any program ' C:\Program files\outlook express\msimn.exe'. This file
does not have a program associated with it for performing this action.
Create an association. Create an association in the folder options control
panel.

The only thing that changes in the error message is the name of the
program she tries to start. The System Restore will not run either. The
system boots OK to Windows XP HE SP2.

Is there any ideas on what I can do to restore her system without a
complete system reinstall? Is there a way to run System Restore from BOOT
Up?

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Click Start, Run and type COMMAND.COM
Type:
C:\Windows\System32\restore\rstrui.exe
System Restore interface should launch. Now, rollback to an earlier date
when the system was working fine.

 

[Jim Brown]

I tried this but when I ran Command.com I got the error message 'Windows
cannot open this file-'command.com'.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

This article has the information on how to restore the registry hives set
from a recent System Restore point manually.

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from
starting:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

Alternate to the Recovery Console, you can try BartPE Boot CD and do the
above modifications.

How to edit the registry offline using BartPE boot CD ?:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm