Help activeSync 4.5 or newer required?????

[becomer]

I have hard reset for the 1,234,345 time last night and today (several hours) and done some tweaking on my HTC Touch Pro. I tried to run advanced config and it said I needed .net 3.5. Understood, I have done this before and forgot this time. However, as my previous tries, what I noticed this time was that once installed (.net 3.5) my font fails to show up in several places. Seems to be random, but one consistent is when entering text in IE (search string and address bar). This time it was my tabs in settings also. I uninstalled .net and now when I connect to puter it says "To synchronize this device, you must install ActiveSync 4.5 or newer on your desktop computer. I am running MicroStuck Windows Vista with mobile media center. I would really rather not hard reset again today if it can be helped. Any suggestions would be very helpful. I am not opposed to buying that beer or coffee that everyone seems to want either.
Thanks,
Becomer (Cataclysm)

[becomer]

If needed I can list most of the tweaks I have done, software I have installed, etc.