files changing from jpg to exe

Please Please Please help me out. I have been downloading alot of software from diffrent downloading networks. Now my computer won't open any jpg or mp3 files when I double click them. they don't appear to be associated with any programs. when I double click the files they change from blah.jpg to blah.jpg.exe. I can open my jpg's with photoshop, unless I have tried to double click them already. also, when I go to control panels, none of the icons open up to anything. i can open up the control panel items if i try to access them through help. is this fixable? am i going to have to reinstall windows? is there anyway to tell which program is the trouble maker?

 

It sounds like you've got a virus and if you intend on just reinstalling Windows overtop of itself, your still going to end up being reinfected at some point again. You need to get rid of the virus. I don't know specifically which one you may have but all of those symptoms are similar to many that occur when your infected. To rule a virus in or out, try running an online virus scan <a href=http://housecall.antivirus.com/pc_housecall/> here</a>. Be patient because it's takes a while to run.

Or if you have any antivirus software running, update it's patterns and then run a scan of your hardrive. If the patterns haven't been updated, the antivirus software scan won't do any good.

Let us know what happens.