Help! FFXI addict deprived of his drug!

[Galaktus]

I was playing FFXI in windowed mode while i had internet explorer web browser opened and i got a message from my Adobe Flash Player pestering me that it wanted to download an update. I clicked to allow update it then told me that internet explorer needed to be closed first so i did so. The update proceded and it caused FFXI to shutdown.

When i logged back into FFXI it was beyond crazy. Every players character including my taru had the same character model of a male hume. Players names were missing. This was in Sauromauge Champainge right outside Jeuno and a nearby bat had the name of a Goblin. So i shut down the game and tryed to log back in. It wouldn't let me giving me an error. I reset my computer and it didn't help. Was getting a message from operating system saying "windows had experienced an unexpected error and needs to shut down" the program.

I then proceded to uninstall and deleted every FFXI file. Restart my computer. Log into Steam to redownload and install. Now I'm gettting these problems...

POL: 5312 "An unexpected problem occured. Persistant problems can be reported from Service and Support".

It allows me to continue past this error. All the way to the "Play" button to start FFXI.

Immediately after clicking "Play" i get a windows error. "PlayOnline Viewer has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."

All this happens everytime i try to get on. I'm going to now uninstall FFXI again. And this time uninstall everything Adobe. And run a adware/virus scan. Then redownload FFXI again and try again. Not gonna wait for responce cause i really want to play asap. But please respond if you know whats going on here. I assume i shouldn't of run that Adobe Flash Update with FFXI running and it corrupted the files. But i don't know why it could continue have a fresh install. Please help!

[Arcon]

If a clean install doesn't work, try performing a file check from the POL startup menu. The first time do it on the PlayOnline Viewer, then on the game, as both seem to be corrupted.

[Galaktus]

That was the first thing i tried. Should'a said before. It detected a problem. Fixed some files then things were made worse. This was right after the corruption, before the fresh install. After the fresh install and discovering the current bugs i tried that again. It saw no problems. So the problem is something else on my system. Its a fresh install it shouldn't be FFXI itself.

[Thegreatmonkey]

Try this: uninstall FFXI, then run CCleaner http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner have it clean up your registry. Keep having CCleaner look for problems with your registry and fixing it until it finds nothing.

WARNING: make a back up of your registry before doing anything to it. CCleaner will ask you be it makes it's changes if you want to make a backup.

Other things you can try: after uninstalling, go under the steam folder where it installs games and make sure all the files to ffxi have been removed.

[Galaktus]

So yeah. Last attempt did nothing. Don't think i got all the Files cause its doing the exact same thing. Gonna go with thegreatmonkey's suggestion. If that doesn't work i'm gonna back up everything and do a fresh format of the whole damn computer. If that don't work. I'll just shoot myself. Wish me luck