Itunes reverted to old library

When I opened my itunes folder today, most of my music was gone. I had had a library of around 1100 songs, but this library only has 357. All my playlists are gone, too. After looking closely at this library I realized that it was my library as it looked around the end of 2005. I also lost all my playlists and play count, which I guess is not as important as the music all being there in the first place.
All of the hundreds of songs I have added since then are still here on my computer, in a folder (my music > itunes > itunes music, and then folders for each artist), but I can't access them through itunes unless I want to go through one by one and open each song individually to itunes. And even if I take the time to do that, what if this happens again?
But:
Why has this happened?
How can I undo it?
Is there a way to restore it all without going and individually opening each song back to itunes?
What do I do if it happens again?
It probably has something to do with the fact that as of a week or so ago, the media files on my computer have become/begun to be entered at realplayer files, as opposed to whatever they were before. Is this a virus? Is this a big problem? And again, how do I fix it?
I really hope I've been clear about this problem; I'm finding it a bit difficult to explain. Help, please!
Windows XP

Thanks for the reply, but this doesn't solve my problem. The actual music files are still in my computer, but the library information that iTunes has is not up to date with files that I have added after July 2007.
I'd like a way to retrieve the library information, not the actual files.

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Message was edited by: stevebr -- small clarification.

I know that in Mac OS X one can pick which library to use by holding down the option key while starting iTunes. What's the Windows equivalent?
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WIll the fact that the music is now on another physical drive make a difference
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I know the previous install is at least 7.0, but I have no idea about which point release.
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