Desktop shotcuts hijacked by MS Office Word

I'm having a problem with my HP pavillion Dv7 laptop. I'm not a real savy computer person but know some basics. My wife tried to transfer a document from her laptop to mine last night using a usb memory stick. My computer told her that it couldn't open the document in that format but she said it gave her a list to pick from and she clicked on one. {I don't have any more detail than that as she can't remember specifics} The problem is this. Most of my desktop items now show up as word document icons and when I click on them Word 7 opens instead of the proper program. If I right click the item and check properties it still shows the correct program, it just wont open. I also tried opening these programs through the start menu, the same thing happens. I thought I would try system restore, but again, word opens when I try to open system restore. Does anyone have any ideas? I will try and give anymore info that I can, unfortunately I wasn't there when she did this so I don't know much more on those specifics. Thank You for any help.

I will give you a tutuorial to help with associations.
This should help
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/233243-default-file-type-associations-restore.html?ltr=D

Run a full antivirus scan
Download and run malwarebytes at full scan and updated before tring the Associations.