Performance - counters and logs wiped out?

[Almali del Benian]

I was looking for something in the Administrative Tools, Windows XP
Home, went to Add/Remove, and looked at the Windows area. I thought I
was just looking, but suddenly some Wizard came up. I can't remember
if I pressed Next or not; if so, I thought I could cancel at any time,
but before I knew what was happening, this Wizard suddenly said it was
finished, and had removed registry entries. Something about counters
and logs.

What could have happened? Did I ruin my dealer's so very careful
installation of Windows XP Home on my system? Was it previous counters
and alert logs I removed, and will they start up again automatically?

I tried Support and Help, but I didn't understand it. Trying to follow
Support and Help concerning Performance, I got into
System Monitor, and watched a screen repeatedly test the system. I
didn't undertand the Help screen. In short, I'm very disoriented about
this.

I can't find any reference to having wiped out performance and alert
logs or counters, or removing registry items, Event Viewer, not under
Application, nor Security, nor System.

Since it appears registry items were removed, what should I be
concerned about? Woud that only be past records, and will new ones be
being created? I'm in a bit of a panic, in case you didn't already
guess that.

This machine isn't connected to any netwok, not local, and not
otherwise, either, though it has network capabilities, and there's a
network capability onboard, or something like that. I'm using it as a
single-user system.

Thanks in advance for anything you can suggest for me, in case there's
something I took out that I need to put back!
Almali del Benian

 

[Almali del Benian]

Adding information (at the top):

I remember now what I was looking for when I went to Add/Remove
programs. I'd been reading about hotfixes for XP Home, and I wanted to
see which ones were installed. My dealer fully updated both XP Home
and Microsoft Office 2000 (installing the latter from my CDs) before
my new computer left his shop on 12 February. I might also add that
I've been checking Windows Update since then, about once a week, and
there haven't been any more updates.

Oops - I looked in the wrong place! The list, I discovered after I
made the Wizard error described below, is in the first screen in the
Add/Remove programs; my error was to go look at "Windows Component,"
or something like that.

I hope that will provide at least a little illumination to the gross
error I seem to have made that I describe below (in my previous post).

Almali del Benian