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Master Honshu
n00b
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2004
- Messages
- 47
Hey, good people. I am having a pretty serious issue with WINXP right now and need some help. Here's the history:
--Computer started acting up one day, locked up and after rebooting would continue to automatically reboot just before loading Windows.
--Made the horrendous mistake of taking my computer to the Geek Squad at Best Buy. They told me that the hard drive was corrupt and that a stick of RAM was corrupted. They removed the bad 512K of RAM and told me I would need a new hard drive.
--I took my computer back and ran a repair install of WINXP (which is what I should have done in the first place). The computer finally started booting normally.
--Later I learned that any new software would not install because Windows Installer seemed to be missing files, even though I had ran a repair install.
--Even later I also learned that Add/Remove Programs no longer exists in my Control Panel, and not only that, appwiz.cpl is also missing from WINDOWS\SYSTEM32.
So at this point I'm at a loss as to how to repair Windows Installer and Add/Remove Programs (I'm sure they're related on some level?). I don't know why my repair installation did not take care of those, either. It's either reformat the entire drive (or replace it), which I could do eventually, but I need to back up some things first, or find a way to get Windows Installer and Add/Remove Programs back. Are these modules that can be re-installed from the web possibly?
I'm just curious about my options, but I will eventually reformat and/or get a new hard drive if that's my only option. Thanks for any help.
--Computer started acting up one day, locked up and after rebooting would continue to automatically reboot just before loading Windows.
--Made the horrendous mistake of taking my computer to the Geek Squad at Best Buy. They told me that the hard drive was corrupt and that a stick of RAM was corrupted. They removed the bad 512K of RAM and told me I would need a new hard drive.
--I took my computer back and ran a repair install of WINXP (which is what I should have done in the first place). The computer finally started booting normally.
--Later I learned that any new software would not install because Windows Installer seemed to be missing files, even though I had ran a repair install.
--Even later I also learned that Add/Remove Programs no longer exists in my Control Panel, and not only that, appwiz.cpl is also missing from WINDOWS\SYSTEM32.
So at this point I'm at a loss as to how to repair Windows Installer and Add/Remove Programs (I'm sure they're related on some level?). I don't know why my repair installation did not take care of those, either. It's either reformat the entire drive (or replace it), which I could do eventually, but I need to back up some things first, or find a way to get Windows Installer and Add/Remove Programs back. Are these modules that can be re-installed from the web possibly?
I'm just curious about my options, but I will eventually reformat and/or get a new hard drive if that's my only option. Thanks for any help.