How to fix media player

Factual Questions
1

So the other day I was browsing, and IE died. Everytime I open it, the page will load, then a box comes up saying something to the effect of “a problem has occured and we need to close IE, sorry for any inconvienence.” It has the option to restart IE and to send/not send and error report.

I don’t particularly care about IE, so after running ad-aware and installing critical updates from microsoft and trying to reinstall IE, I switched to Mozilla, and all was well.

Now I can’t open media player though! I click on the shortcut and it gives me the mouse-with-sand timer for a moment, then, nothing. The media files on my computer no longer have media icons, they have that icon that means my computer doesn’t recognize it (a white page, bent in the top, right hand corner and a windows-style window on it.)

How can I fix media player? Alternatively, is there a better player I can download (for free), like mozilla was for IE?

Thank you for your time.

2

A better media player would be Zoom Player, found here: http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml

As for your actual problem, I have no idea how to fix it. It seems serious tho, so I wouldn’t just forget about it after coming up with workarounds.

3

Dunno about your specific problem, but may I suggest Media Player Classic, which is freeware, handles all formats (including that verkakte Quick Time), without trying to do anything unless you tell it so.
I highly recommend it.