Odd Computer Problem... You Think You Can Help?

[AndreTheAzN]

Okay, my friend has a computer problem and I can't figure out how to fix it, neither can he. I'll try to explain it:

Okay so, his story was that his brother was using the computer and wanted to run a game, Fable: The Lost Chapters. It asked him what he wanted to open it with (I hope you know what I mean), and he chose the game itself. I guess he accidentally chose the option of using that game to open all other .exe files. The option said "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" (which was a .exe).

That made ALL .exe change so that it would execute Fable:The Lost Chapters when opened. He couldn't fix it.

I imagine it was a virus or trojan since it asked how he wanted to open a .exe.

If anyone understood, do you have a solution other than Redoing Windows?

Ask questions because it was hard to explain.

Thanks!

[Anodoin]

There's a utility in Windows that shows you what extensions are associated with what.  Open that up and dig around in there for a little while to see if you can find out anything.  If you let us know what version of Windows he's using we could point you towards that utility.

[AndreTheAzN]

There's a utility in Windows that shows you what extensions are associated with what.  Open that up and dig around in there for a little while to see if you can find out anything.  If you let us know what version of Windows he's using we could point you towards that utility.

Forgot to say, it's Windows XP.

And, while I was at his house trying to crack the case, I saw that some files had extensions called .lnk. According to Google, that's the extension for Short-Cuts.

Still, I don't know what to do.

[Deerpark]

Get the "EXE File Association Fix" from here.
Unzip the file and run it.