IE10 Missing in Action: will not run, not in program list. ??? no clue

This is a totally new one to me folks. I have had IE10 in and running for several months on Windows 7 Home Prem x64 on Thinkpad x120E. I typically use either Chrome or FF19. today I thought I would try a bothersome government website with IE10 and discovered the icon is gone - changed to that generic square thing "missing". went to the programs folder in Control Panel and there is no Internet Explorer entry. Checked Program Files x86 and there is the folder, and the exe file etc. tried to run the iexplore.exe and it fails, leaves no error message in windows event log. downloaded the IE10 install package from MS and it bails saying there is a later version already installed.

along with the cratered IE10, firefox "Nightly" x64 suffered similar fate, and Ccleaner [also a x64 version] the same.

any clues? I'm dazzled.... have not a clue what happened. system is otherwise stable, no issues except I DID notice that in Windows Update list it offered up "Internet Explorer 9" for me to install..... a tad disconcerting.

pls give me some news!

problems from within (e.g. chkdsk)
problems from without (e.g. infections)

...but let's start by looking for IE10 in the 64bit folder (...\Program Files\) not the x86 one.

> went to the programs folder in Control Panel and there is no Internet Explorer entry.
There should not be an IE entry in the Programs and Features listing.
Normally one could go to Start
...type view installed updates in the Search programs and files field
...click on the resulting link
...and look around in there for IE9 or IE10
but since Windows update is offering you IE9, you might not find any IE entries in the list of updates.

hello and THANK you for helping me
first, there were two folders for ie10, same installation date 3/13/2013. The 64-bit folder had only two files iin it: IIRC they were both *.dll's.

I say 'were' because IE10 did have a listing in the Windows Update list. I uninstalled it, so I have for now reverted to IE9.

I ran scannow since posting this and am attaching the CBS log results as sfc-details txt file

Doing some more snooping on my system, the following programs are all either partially or fully zombiefied. 'Partly" means they might start and run but cannot be uninstalled using windows 7 Programs function. Others just fail leaving no trace at all [Nightly is an example]
Also, notably, MSO 2007 Enterprise is a 'partly' - invoking any of its functions results in it trying to reinstall and set itself up from the files on the hard drive.
LIST:
MS IE10 [64?]
ccleaner 64 bit
agent ransack
AdBeBone 1.21
Audible Manager
Belarc Advisor 8.2
Conexant HD Audio
WD Data Lifeguard
Do Not Track Me add-on
Everything Search for win7
Fileshredder 2.5
Google Talk Plugin
HWinfo64 Ver 4.0.2
Irfanview [it works, but not healthy]
Java 7 update 17
MS Visual C++ Redist x86
ditto 2010 x64
MS Office Enterprise 2007 buggy - keeps reinstalling on start of any app
Thinkpad Ultranav driver
Touchfreeze
Tradelog
VLC Media player
Windows 7 usb/dvd download tool
WinHHTrack

I've done a rudimentary malware scan [zero] but have not done a rootkit sniff yet. will do that next.

I am suspicious of the Tradelog program - its a database app for tax prep on market trading and goes through a lot of revisions. I'm not sure what its dependencies are [ms dependenciies] but its the only thing that has been installed/revved in the last week. I've done no MS updates since about two months ago, that is, that I know of... none that I deliberately touched off and I have the updater set to 'notify only'

It is good that it was able to repair so many files, but one has to wonder how so many files were corrupted. Your next move might be a chkdsk.

Also, I have seen people suggest that you run SFC 3 times.

You might end up spending tons of time on this - it might be better to do this: Clean Install Windows 7