WMP strangeness

I upgraded my IE to IE9 (beta) and somehow lost Windows Media Player. I reverted back to IE8 and WMP is still not working. I have been using my W7Pro64 for over a year and it was working fine. Now when I click on a WMV file I see a flash as if WMP was trying to start, then whatever the flash was disappears. It clearly was the WMP program trying to start, but why would it not be working?

Instead of uninstalling, try a system restore point prior to ie9.

It's a bit late for that, isn't it?

What are your system specs?