Thanks!! It's on my work computer so I'll give it a shot tomorrow..
I did a similar process, but instead of renaming it, I deleted the file (because then a new one would be recreated on system restart). Then restarted. Failed. So perhaps this will work. Will try & report back.
Thx, fingers crossed.. if this doesn't work maybe I'll try downloading a registry fixer.. If that doesn't work I'll have to try a system restore. FML