.exe; or, what to do when you change file associations by accident...

No bleep, there I was... OK, so I did something really stupid. Won't go into the details, but the end result was that my WinXP no longer knew what to do with software with an .exe extension, wanted to know what application I should use to open it with. And, guess what, all of the built-in means of rolling stuff back in Windows requires proper functioning of .exe files. Including editing the Registry; after all, regedit.exe? Repairing the installation doesn't work either, while lots and lots of stuff I didn't want changed were, this wasn't. And MS doesn't have information posted in re what the default settings should be for this; well, OK, since you shouldn't change this association you shouldn't ever need this info, but what if you do? None of my reference materials were of assistance. Need to search the web, oh, wait, browser launching requires ... .exe programs... Luckily, via weird stuff relating to browser functions being tightly integrated into the Windows OS, while I couldn't launch a browser myself, I could trick Windows into doing it by having it ask for online help. Now I'm online. Searched MS, nix. Google the web [so, like, google, akin to aspirin, has become a generic term in modern society, but that's a matter for a different post] looking for stuff on .exe, association, default, hoping to find something useful. Lots of links to forums for programming and creating file types, but looking pretty grim. Then I get lucky. If this has happened to you, if you find that .exe is no longer working properly, if the default file association for .exe has been corrupted in the Windows Registry [hint, I'm trying to load this with the terms which would have pulled my search in... :grin:] Go here: JTB World Blog: Have you lost your .EXE file extension association in Windows Vista? Note: The fix works just as well in WinXP Home Edition SP3 as it does in Vista, and I suspect it would work in any iteration of Windows since they implemented the registry back in Win95, but I can't state that from personal experience. Post this puppy!