Help - Weird Video Prob

[anabeces]

I uninstalled Kazaa Lite, DLExpert, Advanced Avi Splitter and Expert Avi Joiner. Now I get the message "no combination of filters could be found to render the stream" whenever ANY video in .avi format that I have on my HD that use to work a couple days ago perfectly. I don't know if they above uninstallations are related to this prob or not but I did a couple things:

1)tried to play the videos via Real player, Windows Media Player, Zoom Player, BSPlayer and even a DivX one.
2)updated to latest divx codec
3)re-installed latest XviD codecs
4)re-installed windows media player 7.1
5)used a proggy called 'Gspot' to see if i had necessary codecs, I did
6)drivers were already updated and not altered lately anyways, so i never touched them.
7)used 'ad-aware' to check for spyware (my hd was clean)
8)ran 'norton anti-virus' (i found no infected files)
STILL NO LUCK

note my operating system = win98

summary:
all my vids use to work perfectly a few days ago and this morning i wanted to clear my hd of stuff i don't even use, so i did. Then I wanted to watch an .avi but it never worked.


any help would be appreciated,
Thanks in advance.