Nope. I think your friends are way off base. Your problem comes from the "TuneUp Utilities" more likely.
The problem with those kinds of Utilities is that they have a mind of their own.
I bet if you undid it's last changes before you uninstalled it your recycle bin would have reurned. Windowblinds can't alter your registry apart from writing itself in. It doesn't remove anything from your registry. TuneUp Utilities, like System Mechanic (and the others) does.
If you haven't uninstalled/deleted TuneUp's "fixes", reinstall it, and try to "undo" all changes.
I hope you backed up recently....because if the above doesn't work, I'd recommend doing a "restore to a prior date" before your problem appeared, and if that doesn't work, then restore your system from your last backup.