Can't Open any .EXE files - virus/spyware?

[Javaman]

I'm running Windows XP SP2 and just came across a strange problem. I turned my PC off a day ago with everything running perfectly fine. Today when I turned it on, I had several alerts from Ad Watch pop up saying that certain registry changes were trying to be made. I tried blocking each one but they never ended.

I thought I would try and run Ad Aware because I suspected the problem was spyware related, but I found I couldn't open the program, or any other one for that matter.

I rebooted into safe mode with networking, and things seemed to be working fine so I ran Ad Aware as well as Spybot Search & Destroy. Ad Aware didn't find anything but Spybot identified several instances of spyware which I removed.

Thinking I solved the problem, I rebooted but ran into the same problems again. When I tried rebooting into safe mode again, I could no longer open .exe files there either!

What can I do to fix this?

[shadowpr]

What anti-virus have you ran?

[glc]

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/fileassoc/xp_exe_fix.zip

[Javaman]

thanks glc, that file fixed everything!

and shadowpr, I've run the Trend Micro HouseCall online virus checker, and it found a few things

but now I think I still have a problem with spyware being on my computer. I'm trying to install the latest version of Ad-Aware in safe mode, but every time I do, I get a message saying "The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation"

I DO have admin privileges, and I'm the only one using the computer. How can I fix this?

[shadowpr]

What if you install it normally? (Not in safe mode)

[glc]

The current Ad-Aware is, in my opinion, bloated and lousy. AVG Free 8.0 just came out today, and it combines antivirus with antispyware now. My spyware defense consists of that, Spybot S&D, Super Antispyware, and Spyware Blaster.