Bad File Associations

[netsurfer802]

I got a computer in from a customer running Windows XP Pro that has a problem with file associations when you click ...like with Office extentions such as .xls and .doc it doesn't associate with the actual file...for example with a .doc file it just associates with Word...opens Word...but doesn't show the actual document...just a blank document. I've been able to manually associate the .xls files by choosing to have Windows XP always open these types of files with Excel but wondering what might have caused this...is there some kind of malware that causes this? I used Pass Mark's Disk Check to check the actual hard drive for errors but it showed no errors with the S.M.A.R.T. data. The customer is running Micro Trend Titanium Internet Security which is valid till 2012...and the program itself says that there's no need to manually update (I guess it updates automatically). In it's history it shows that it had stopped a web form of infection but that's all. The customer also said they couldn't open certain attachments with e-mails but I assume this is just the problem above occuring with e-mail attachments. The customer also has File Cure to correct the file associations...but considering the customer had to bring it to me I'm assuming it wasn't much help. Does anybody know what exactly could be causing this and how to fix it?

Thanks in advanced for any helpful feedback.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Posts moved to:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1035327-problem-with-file-associations-and-opening-attachments/

This thread closed, please continue discussion in your earlier post.