ok.... thanks for all the posts, i went over everything.
here's my best guess:
you have something running on your system that has system-wide API hooks and is blocking standard win32 event messages and api calls from reaching Bit Che.
evidence:
1. your screen shots show that the shadows, window size and results listview are not correctly sized and drawn. 100% win32 api events.
2. it appears that the api calls for reading .INI works correctly... but the API call for binary reading of a file is NOT working....
3. the API call "GetPrivateProfileStringW" from "kernel32" is NOT working... you are set for English language.. but its not reading even the basic "strings" from the language file... English.ini..
so... lets start looking at the whatever updates you have had recently to your system.. or what version of AVG you have? some software picked up 'fsg' as he packer that bit_che.exe uses... this is correct. but what software is detected that.. and thus blocking it?
edit: wait, bit_che.exe does not use fsg as its packer.. it used to, but it hasnt for the last few versions.. but it does use a packer, just a different one.
will you run gmer from gmer.net and post a screen shot:
http://www.gmer.net/gmer.zipalso:
http://www.security.org.sg/code/apihookcheck.html"ApiHookCheck.exe > result.html"