I think OpenGL screwed everything up

[Swagman00]

First post here, but if you guys have any idea where to go forward I'm all ears.

Yesterday night I was feeling nostalgic so I decided to DL an old emulator GZDoom to play .WAD files. (Yeah, old school gamer here)

Well, I regret that decision. I fired up the installation file and it rewrote a few things i'm still trying to track down. I had no idea that in order to work it would require OpenGL to function and from what I can guess it wrote over my DirectX and may have wiped a few critical files.

In XP Chrome no longer works. IE is spotty and my best browser is FF ATM (If I don't get constant Shockwave problem alerts which I do). Some of my shortcuts no longer function. System restore is useless so I decided to try safe mode and freeware to try and repair the files. So far, no luck. At least in SM all browsers work. I've already re-installed DX9c thus far.

I'm on my own for diagnostics since XP is no longer supported by windows for help. I can't find my installation disk either.

Any ideas?

[ExtremeX]

Do you trust what you downloaded? Sure it wasn't some type of virus or malware?

I would probably just re-format and re-install windows.

Another reason why virtualization is awesome. You should download and use VMware Player, its free, and ideal for things like that... testing software/containment.

If that's too much action for you, you should consider using an imaging tool like Acronis for backup in the future so you can easily revert back a day or two and be on your way...

[SMR510]

Restore point from before you messed it up? Or does XP not do that it has been a while.

[Swagman00]

Figured it out guys. Turns out my user data somehow corrupted. Two AV programs turned up nothing after I created new folders. All three browsers are working normally again.

Got the tip from here. ---> https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/142059?hl=en

[HonkingAntelope]

No reasonably well-coded app will mess with your system files that way. Many other games use openGL just fine as long as your video drivers support it. Glad you got it fixed, but I would think about switching to Win7 or newer.