Glad you got stuff sorted. My next line of attack was involving the i386 folder. This is the folders that houses files used to repair, install, modify and update Windows. This is why you were getting the problems when trying to reinstall.

The fact is, no Operating System can be 100% bug free. Sometimes things do get deleted by programs or by us accidentally or sometimes for reasons that we can't explain, and that's when the problems start. XP has a little tool called the System File Checker and that enables you to check your system and restore essential OS files that have been corrupted or deleted. Your problem was, the repository from which SFC would restore the files (i386) wasn't there! I think XP is pretty decent and it's getting to a stage now where it's quite mature and doesn't suffer from many "bugs", but errors will always happen.

__________________
Owen,
My Website - I Security.org.uk

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