After (hopefully) scrubbing viruses out of a Windows 7 installation (after deciding not to simply run over the laptop repeatedly with my car), I've got everything almost back to normal. The only lingering issue I have is that for my non-admin users, the ".exe" file extension doesn't work. That is, clicking on the various desktop application links results in a "How do you want to open this?" dialog.

I've been through the alleged registry fixing from "winhelponline" and that had absolutely no effect. I've tried running "assoc" for the affected users, but it reports the .exe association to be "exefile" even though it persistently does not work.

Right-clicking on a desktop icon and then choosing "start" does successfully open an application, but that's clearly a terrible situation.

For my admin user, things seem to work fine.

What do I need to do to get things working?