Broken (and "locked"?) Rtf > Wordpad Association

Vista Home Premium 64 bit

Service Pack 1

*Virus/Malware scanners up to date, nothing suspicious in tasks, no odd performance issues...

Description of Problem

After "Something ?" Happened, Windows lost the ability to Default-open

Rtf files in wordpad. This Had been the default behavior.

*At the time, OpenOffice was installed, and when this problem first occurred,

Openoffce WP “became” the default Open action.

I uninstalled Openoffice, which only resulted in “blank” icons for rtf files.

Double-clicking (shell-default verb) only results in “Windows cannot open this file…use web service, or browse to find correct application”

1) OK, web service does absolutely nothing. (Is this blocked by default firewall settings?)

2) Clicking “browse for correct app” SHOWS wordpad as the default, “suggested” app. (!!!)

The “always use this app” checkbox is checked.

Basically, this “checkbox” is apparently broken, because Windows can’t associate the file with the app. It always forgets, or does nothing.

Now, if you Right Click on the rtf file, the Bold Face Open (top, default action verb) brings up The “windows cannot open this file…etc.”. If you click the small “Open” below this, the file Opens Up In WordPad (!).

If you click “properties”, you see that “rtf” files are associated (default open) with….

“Windows Shell Common…?” (looks like a .dll icon, as I can’t see the whole name in the property dialog)….If you click “Change”, it opens up the “Browse for correct app” Window, again Showing WordPad (!!!) as default, suggested program.

Somehow, this basic shell double-click default verb action for “rtf” is broken and gets pointed to Some basic shell system .dll instead of wordpad.

*****Interestingly, using a few different “file association editor” programs, they all show that “rtf” is not a valid, assigned extention. It is listed as “orphaned”, but Cannot be associated with anything. In particular, “File Type Manager 2” shows “rtf” in the orphaned category, but if you click “change”, “rtf” isn’t of course listed in the “valid” extentions that can be associated to.

I’ve searched the registry for every “rtf” related key, and compared to other computers…everything seems the same, nothing seems broken or missing.

Would there be different settings using “Wordpad” as the registry search?

Would there be an odd, malicious malware thing that would “steal” the rtf extension and Not let Vista reassign it?