guys, i have this really annoying malfunction that started since i installed a certain program which was meant to convert AVI to dvd, but was defective. while trying to load a AVI file, it just crashed. after a few more tries i just uninstalled and deleted the program in question, BUT since then my pc does the same thing the program did. just opening a AVI file and whichever player used for it just crashes and closes (media player, DivX player, realplayer, even winamp). not only that, any folder which contains ANY video file just closes itself whenever i just single-click on a video file before it can show its details. i do know it is not a codec problem, because before this whole thing i could play just about any type of video file with no trouble whatsoever. here's what i tried so far: updating DivX to v6.4 re-installing windows media player EVEN re-installing windows xp didn't do the trick. i really don't want to format my pc over this. there HAS to be a solution. or is there...? i am truly lost. any help will be appreciated.
Perhaps, the program in question has a clean tool that will remove every vestige of the program. Will System Restore take you back to before you installed the program? Or, install and uninstall the program again. Or, try running a registry cleaner; RegSeeker is the most intensive (and free) I know of but you must be careful or you will be reformatting your pc. BEFORE YOU DELETE ANYTHING, ENSURE THAT MAKE BACKUP in the lower left is checked. Select "clean the registry" and let it finish, click select and then "all green items" (ONLY) (plus search the red items for this program but make sure it is for that program) and then right click and delete all selected items. It will then put them in a file if you wish to restore them. Any red items are ok to delete later if you recognize programs you no longer have but once again, be careful. You can also let RegSeeker do a search for that particular program in "search the registry", selecting all keys, typing in the name of the program and selecting search. But, once again be careful what you delete as many programs can have similar names but are totally different. If you don't want to use it, that's understandable but before you reformat and if nothing else works, there's nothing to lose. I have used it for 3 years with no problems but others have hosed their systems when they weren't careful and the backup didn't restore properly. And, I would look into some kind of image backup software for the future like True Image, Ghost etc. It is the ultimate uninstaller.
mistycat thank u very much for answering, but everything is ok now. the program i installed clashed with ffdshow video decoder. i found out when i saw i couldn't open it to change my preferences. that's what caused all those weird problems. all i neeeded to do was uninstall and re-install it.
