Take a crack at this

So i just turned on my computer and nothing seems to be working. Windows loads but the icons in my start menu and desktop and program menu are all ink files (with no icons) with names on it and when i click on them nothing happens. In addition none of my programs loads up at startup and none of the exe in my program files work (they lost their icons too). A virus scan showed nothing. The only way i can open a program is by clicking that "open with" menu and chooosing from there. So? what do you think? just reformat?

btw. im running a compaq presario sr1210nx if that helps...

End Of Days! but a possible solution...

Loading a new user profile. Create a new user "start -> run -> control -> users " or "start -> run -> cmd -> net user add"

Login with the new user account... Presto Chango!?

Which version of windows are you on ??

I assume that you are on windows xp. You can try to repair the current installation of windows.

Boot with the xp cd and then select the repair option.

Other than that before you repair windows try to do the virus scan with latest definations and in safe mode without networking.

Also do malware scan.

XP? SP1, 2? Cracked version?
What anti-virus did you use? Is it updated?
What happened right before "nothing" was done?

I agree. Log in with new profile. If it fine, then rebuild the old profile.

Tonayie,
Sounds like you have a file association problem. If you want to try and fix it, you can visit the link I posted below -
http://filext.com/faq/broken_exe_association.php

The problem is a registry thing some how one of the keys got messed up and you need to repair it. I had a .reg file that u could merge and it would fix it but i seem to have misplaced it. I shall look and see if i can find it.