Botched software install

[jt3]

Been debugging a new XP installation on a new machine; haven't yet installed
SP2, not everything shipshape yet.

Two questions, one general:
After installing the modem (Intel hardware modem) and the driver, I
mistakenly installed one modem application before another, only later to
find that I was supposed to reverse the order. The first one would not
install properly, though the second did. The problem is the first won't
uninstall either: error, can not find specified object (which is nonsense),
won't install over the top of the botch, and and I see no alternative to
weeding it out of the registry, but am hoping someone has some suggestions.
Which brings up the second, more specific question:
While spelunking through the registry (made *no* modifications
whatsoever) with an eye to seeing how much of the installation detritus I
could find, I left the machine idle for the space of dinner, and when I came
back it was hung solid. After reboot, I checked the system event log and
found nothing but an hour's hiatus in entries, but no problems indicated.
When I checked the application event log, the only additional oddity was
that after the reboot the firewall , AV (EZ Armor) had logged a couple of
errors. This machine wasn't on line, and has only been on line once to MS
Update for about five minutes, and that some time ago. Does this sort of
thing happen with XP often?

Thanks for your time,
Joe

 

[Guest]

Go to run,type:cmd In cmd type:CHKDSK C: /F Agree to restart,then type:
EXIT Restart computer.You should also run,disk-clean up,then defrag.SP2
isnt worth waiting for to install,it contains alot of needed fixes and
enhances
the running ability of xp.

 

[jt3]

My apologies, I was actually trying to be concise.

I should have mentioned that virtually nothing in the way of applications,
save for Adobe Reader, WinZip, Total Uninstall (too late to solve the
problem I'm concerned about), and Pinnacle Studio 8, which happened because
it came with the DVD-R/RW drive and I thought that it was disk-writing
software, until it was already installed. Other than drivers, nothing else,
beyond standard MS stuff. It hasn't been used for anything, so there's been
none of the normal disk activity. CHKDSK just zips through it and says
'Where's the problem?'

This machine did not start out trouble-free in its OS installation in that
it was difficult about some of the drivers and it took a couple of tries
each for some of them, and three tries for the CPU driver, all of which
makes me less interested in trying the 64-bit version, as I had planned.

That is actually how the problem with the modem software started, since I
thought that the modem was installed (it had said so). Turned out it
wasn't, but only after trying to install the associated call and fax
management software did I find this out.

When I tried to reverse the process after reinstalling the modem (and
ensuring that it worked by using Windows Update) the one program, 'Modem on
Hold,' BVRP Software, for the Intel 536 EP chip, wouldn't uninstall, as I
related.

The associated 'Classic Phone Tools' by BVRP did uninstall just fine. So I
don't know if the problem arose because of the (at that time) improperly
installed modem, or if it came from having 'Classic Phone Tools' installed
first, which they caution one not to do, but only in some documentation
deeply buried on the install CD.

I've read enough about people having to reinstall XP for some of the
smallest problems, read enough about the problems with Activation (I
unfortunately have an OEM version--I'd have sprung for full retail if I'd
known about the OEM activation problems), and more than enough from MVPs and
everyone else about having all problems ironed out before trying to install
SP2, that I'm very reluctant to go down that road with any haste, and in
fact am taking the whole project so slowly that the machine will probably be
completely out of date by the time I get to actually using it!

Thanks,
Joe