I installed the playitall player, i actually liked how this player played almost every format i through at it. I also uninstalled the program and it did the same thing to me. i have xp, it erased all the file type associations, making it impossible to open exe files, all my short cuts under the start button where disabled, every type of file that my computer used to know how to work with suddenly didn't work anymore. I had to enter my control panel, then folder options, then file types, then create a new file type named .exe, then under advanced, select application. this allowed me to run system restore on my machine. I selected a date that was as far back as i could go, this brought all my file type associations back to life. Without making this new file type association under the folder options menu, system restore wouldn't even run. I had to find system restore by right clicking the broken link under system tools, then under properties, clicking find target, this brought me to the folder which contained the exe file for system restore. If anyone else finds this article i hope it was helpful, hope you get your machine working again 