I have been using EAC 095pb4 with Lame 3.90.3 to make high bitrate VBR mp3s for quite a while with no problems. I'm running WIN XP pro. Just the other day I discovered that when I select from the menu "Action-Copy selected tracks-compressed", EAC begins making .WAV files instead of .MP3s. The resulting files are the size of the mp3s I make but have the extention of .wav. I tried changing the extention to .mp3 but no go...they won't play.

I then deleted the EAC program (and the lame files) from my EAC directory. I also removed the EAC files from the registry. I re-installed EAC and Lame in my EAC directory, set everything up as before. Tried again to rip some mp3s but the same thing happened again... .wavs instead of .mp3s.

I uninstalled/reinstalled 2 more times to no avail. The only thing that looks funny in the registry is the EAC/compression options/ExternalEncoderExtention has a value of mp3 not the expected (dot) .mp3.

I've had to switch to Cdex but I want to use EAC. I may have to just do a clean install of winxp to fix this. If anyone knows anything about this please HELP!

My experience has been that EAC makes the WAV files as an intermediate file and will then delete it if instructed to do so. You might want to try some of the help specific to EAC which is available.

'Delete wav after compression' is checked in the compression options of my EAC.

And then converts them using the external compressor. If you have ticked 'on extraction, start external compressors queued in the background' in EAC->EAC options->Tools, conversion will start as soon as the first track ist ripped. Otherwise, EAC will rip all selected tracks, then convert.
If you untick 'Do not open external compressor window', EAC will show Lame's console output. Try this to see if the compressor is working. If it isn't (which I assume to be the case), use the wizard to configure it. Or take a look at this tutorial.

Don't! I'm 99.9% sure it is a simple error in your EAC configuration.

Agreed. It is most likely a configuration problem that can be remedied by being patient enough to find out where the problem is. You don't need to do something so dreadfully drastic as reinstalling everything on your system.

When dealing with registry settings, especially deleting them in Windows XP be aware that Windows XP doesn't necessarily store them in single, or usual places as it was in for example; Windows 98.

Under Windows XP Pro I've seen settings stay intact after deletion due to them being stored in this area (it may in a different location on other systems/installations):
[HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-4067281427-51602624-102226825-1008\Software]