Michael,
I had the same exact problem. I tried your advise and frankly was nervous
about the registry...you know, "scared of the Registry" syndrome.
I have Adobe Photo Elements and one of the file extension associations is
..png. I opened the program and checked the file assocation box for the .png
extension and my "Help and Support" works perfectly and all the images show
properly with no more red "x"'s. Why this worked? Who knows...I certainly
don't.
Thanks for the .png association suggestion or I would not had found this
solution.
flyfishnm