Fresh installation: Windows cannot find the specified device error

Greetings,

I am quite apologetic about taking your valuable time here with my (probably) petty problem.

It seems that amongst my usual monthly reformat and installation of Windows XP… I lost the access\use of certain ‘.exe’ files. Now, it first started two days ago (The 9th). During the last update sequence on Windows XP, I was installing a security update (That I cannot remember), it did not ask me to restart, so, I was going to start maintenance and optimization process (This includes: running ‘junk’ cleaners, registry scans, disabling services and modifying settings on miscellaneous programs and files.)

After finishing this and before running defraggler, I decided to open ‘VLC’ play and I was met with a ‘File cannot be located’ (Or however the error goes), so, I decided to go and locate it in the program files. I found the folder but not the .exe for VLC… So, I decide to try MPC (Media Player Classic) and that .exe was also missing (Installed VIA Combined Community Codec Package)… Now, I’m thinking somewhere, somehow the registry cleaner and\or one of the various scans and] or updates went bad--Rebooted into safe mode and checked everything and it all came out clean (Both in the Administrator account and my user account.)

Since both anti-virus, anti-malware and rootkit scans came back clean and all the optimization scans and regular scans came back clean. I decided it must have been a fluke and restarted into normal mode….

I was wrong, the Glarys utilities shortcut was a blank image and when I clicked it, I received the “Windows cannot find the specified device” error, and I was still missing the ‘MPC’ and ‘VLC’ .exes, I also discovered Avira anti-virus would not start and gave me the same error as Glarys utilities. So, I uninstalled them, cleaned all traces and restarted.

After that final restart, I installed Avast and it came back okay and redid all my scans and they were clean as usual. So, I decide to reinstall ‘VLC’, ‘Combined Community Codec Package’ and Glarys utilities. ‘VLC’ and ‘MPC’ .exes did not install and Glarys utilities installed nicely, but still gave the same error…

After running downstairs and using my parents’ computer, I grabbed a copy of the ‘VLC’ and ‘MPC’ .exes and put them in their appropriate folders and got the ‘Windows cannot find the specified device’ error…

Now I know it isn’t a virus, malware\adware\spyware and neither is it any type of rootkit. I’m at a loss, I tried the usual fixes (I.E: Combofix, OTS, Services, uninstalling and reinstalling Microsoft visual C++ and Microsoft .net framework.)

I am at a complete and utter loss for a solution.

And yes, it is only those .exes.
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The system is a Windows XP sp3, fully updated.
Zone alarm
Avast anti virus
Threat fire
Superantispyware
Malware bytes (Disabled)
Spybot search and destroy (Disabled)
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That is all, except, I did use: Ccleaner, Ncleaner, Spyware blaster, mv regclean and Glarys utilities.