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I can't download anything or acess programs on my computer?
Every time I click on something on my computer a thing pops up saying:"Please choose the program you want to open with this file". It has adobe reader, internet explorer, quicktime & itunes, when I click on any of them, something pops up saying "view your downloads" , we can't download anything. It says that the program I need to download might not be on the computer? I'm using windows xp. Evertime I clock on any program in my computer something pops up saying "choose what program you want to open this with." or I might not have the right program. I can't get on windows media player, control panel, adobe reader, etc. I can't download or anything. What is wrong? How can I fix this?
Please help me!!! I can't download anything on my computer and I don't know why.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Computers?
That sounds like something is seriously wrong. I doubt it's just a problem with the file associations -- it sounds like the programs themselves are also missing. I'd guess massive disk corruption.
Make sure your data is backed up ASAP.
Can you open things like Adobe Reader or Windows Media Player directly, without double-clicking a file? If you can, it might just be a software problem. If not, I think you'll need a new computer or repairs on this one.
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You can repair file associations one by one, or using a script but in a situation such as yours where things have gotten to the state you describe, I believe that doing that would be an inefficient bandaid. (You can Google something like "windows xp repair file associations" if you're interested.)
Something "larger" than a few simple forgotten file types is going on here, I think. I think, though, that you may be able to resolve this without too much trouble.
- Windows XP has a system restore feature, so you should have restore points available at a time when your computer was ok. Try the following:
Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore and find and use a restore point when the computer was working as it should.
- I would wonder if the problem is specific to your user account, (profile.) If your computer has more than one user account setup, try logging into another account to see if the problem is specific to a certain profile.
If you do NOT have any other accounts configured, you might try creating one and using that to test. Again, you'd be doing this to see if the problem is related to a specific user profile.
- You might try some of the free online scanners to see if something along of the lines of a trojan or malware is the issue:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
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Free Malware Bytes Tool:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
I hope that this helps. Please let us know if you have any questions!
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