XP Repair

[William Wolfe]

I have some problems playing a DVD that spans several programs (Windows
Media Player, Win DVD). I run Norton AV 2006 and the 2006 firewall. I also
have run a full system scan, so I don't think there are any viruses present.
I suspect some XP file has been corrupted. I run XP Pro. Is there a way to
run an XP repair utility that will validate all of the system files and make
corrections as needed?

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I have some problems playing a DVD that spans several programs (Windows
Media Player, Win DVD). I run Norton AV 2006 and the 2006 firewall. I
also have run a full system scan, so I don't think there are any viruses
present. I suspect some XP file has been corrupted. I run XP Pro. Is
there a way to run an XP repair utility that will validate all of the
system files and make corrections as needed?

sfc /scannow in the Start, Run box or command prompt window.

 

[Paul Johnson]

I have some problems playing a DVD that spans several programs (Windows
Media Player, Win DVD).
Describe?
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

I run Norton AV 2006 and the 2006 firewall.

Many people have reported lots of odd problems with Norton AV. My
recommendation is to uninstall Norton AV and throw it away. Norton
frequently false alarms and misses viruses actually present. AVG Free
Edition does a far better job than Norton for far less money and system
resources. It should be noted that while AVG Free Edition claims to be
free, it's actually merely zero-charge. You are not free to use the
software as you wish, read the license for restrictions.

http://free.grisoft.com/

Norton Firewall (and all other personal firewalls) are snake oil. Do not
use them. Go get yourself a router instead; this gives you much more
control, and real protection instead of pretending to be protected. The
idea of a firewall is to keep unwanted packets from reaching your computer:
This can't be done if the firewall is running on the computer you're trying
to protect. Personal firewall vendors are only trying to get into your
wallet, nothing more.

http://samspade.org/d/firewalls.html

I suspect some XP file has been corrupted. I run XP Pro. Is there a way
to run an XP repair utility that will validate all of the system files and
make corrections as needed?

If you think your system has been compromised, there is only one
effective solution, as system files (including repair utilites) may
have been modified to prevent both it's detection and it's removal.

1) Immediately disconnect the computer from the network and only
connect it temporarily for patches until the entire process is
complete.

2) Format the computer. No data is salvagable, see reason in previous
paragraph.

3) Reinstall your OS and apply all patches; this may take several reboots. Be sure to only have your network connection plugged in when downloading patches and unplug it when not downloading.

4) Reinstall your programs and antivirus and apply all patches. You
can leave yourself connected once all patches have been made to your
programs and antivirus software.

5) Restore from a known good backup from before you think you have
been compromised. All backups from after the compromise date should
be deleted or destroyed.

 

[William Wolfe]

I ran this utility and kept getting the message "Files that are required for
Windows to run properly must be copied to the dll cache. Insert your
Windows XP Pro CD rom now." I press retry and the program runs a short
time and then the message is repeated. I finally completed the run, but why
all these error mesages?

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I ran this utility and kept getting the message "Files that are required
for Windows to run properly must be copied to the dll cache. Insert your
Windows XP Pro CD rom now." I press retry and the program runs a short
time and then the message is repeated. I finally completed the run, but
why all these error mesages?

Did you do as it prompted and insert your XP Pro CD? If you did and still
got the prompt it is possible that the source path information in your
registry is incorrect. Run regedit and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup. Verify
the value for SourcePath points to your CD drive.