A simple and easy way to restore important files that have been edited/removed by a user or 3rd party applications is to use the sfc /scannow command available in newer operating systems.
Go to Start > Run> Type "cmd" and press enter > Type "sfc /scannow" (without quotes) and insert a Windows installation disc into your CD/DVD-Rom and wait for the process to finish. If the process finds altered files, it will automatically restore them to the initial state (functioning one!). When the operation completes, you need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
