Jeff--
Many OEMs have some kind of CD, (some provide an XP OEM CD and put their
logo on the CD), and some have a "recovery" CD that has the OS files on
it ), but perhaps yours does not. You might want to contact them though,
because it would be helpful to have. if they did supply one. *I understand
that you don't have one on hand now.* First, are you able to run System
Restore? If this "snail-crawl phenomenon" in your OS is recent, look for
restore points before this happened. If you can restore successfully and
that fixes things, you're done. If not, then run System File Checker. It
often can fix problems in XP, IE or OE.
Description of the Windows File Protection Feature
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/Q222/1/93.ASP&NoWebContent=1
Description of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 System File Checker
(Sfc.exe)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310747
I don't know what build of XP you have, in terms of XP RTM, SP1 or SP2,
but I would run System File Checker on it. That can often replace corrupt
files with intact ones. Since you don't have a CD to point to, *you may
have to modify your registry to point to the install files on your hard
drive.* This also would enable you to run SFC pointing to the install
files if you had a service pack without a slip streamed CD. That way you
don't need the CD.
See:
Introduction to using scannow sfc (system file checker)
http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html
Read the section titled: "What about Windows Updates...."
Pay attention to these two points in the article, and then if necessary
follow the rest of it. From the linked article:
#1
You'll want to point your CD to the drive your OS is on by editing the
registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath
to reflect the changed drive letter.
#2
Has the registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath
got an incorrect entry? The SourcePath entry does NOT include the path
location till the I386 folder. It completes one folder ahead to reach the
I386 folder.
Example:
If the I386 directory is at C:\I386, the SourcePath value would be C:\
Then, I would upgrade your OS to Windows XP SP2. Again, I don't know
whether you have any service pack now, but it doesn't matter. You can
upgrade XP RTM (out of the box) to SP2, or if you have SP1 you can upgrade
it to SP2. This may also impact your OS performance positively.
To be thorough, you might want to run 2-3 anti-malware programs, because
they are often complementary:
Spyware Cleaners:
Cwshredder
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/cwshredder.zip
Spybot Search and Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org
Ad-aware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com
Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner 1.12
http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10247783.html
Spywareblaster
www.javacoolsoftware.com/sbdownload.html
HijackThis
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3155
At some convenient point, I'd also run a chkdsk /r from the run box or
command prompt, but I don't think this has any direct relationship to the
immediate problem.
PSS at Microsoft is *not* really Microsoft!--and it shows!
After what I've seen with PSS that MSFT proffers to non-enterprise
customers, at their home or small business, I always like to point out that
you weren't talking to employees from Microsoft, the software company
headquatered at Redmond, Washington--the one that manufactures Windows XP
and decided to cut back Longhorn last week. You were talking to their
contract vendor, *Convergys of Ohio*, and depending on who you luck onto,
they will often sing the swansong of lousy tech support, and rather than
think about your situations, they will tell you to wipe and load. I think
the choice to use Convergys by Microsoft is a really terrible choice by a
company with so many thousands of talented individuals.
It's a little bit analagous to teaching hospitals in large cities in the
United States, and dental problems with indigent care--they pull the teeth
to save money on more time consuming care with no regard to how the hell
the person will chew in the future with no teeth and no money to afford
replacements.
I wonder what the "PSS" on the other end of the line told you you were going
to be able to use to reinstall the OS if you were to wipe and load. I
wonder if they mentioned trying System Restore or System File Checker.
Unless they provided it free to do you a favor, "MS Support" aka really
Convergys would have charged you for this "support incident" since you were
using an OEM OS. That means they would have charged you to tell you to wipe
and load without mentioning other reasonable alternatives, and as far as I
can figure out, their is a MSFT logo on the OS and on the boxes of Windows
sold, there is a MSFT logo not a Convergys logo. That should stand for real
legitimate support and it does not.
Good luck,
Chad Harris
_________________________________________________
My (1.57 GHz 512 Mbyte RAM)PC operation has slowed to a
crawl and no longer connects via my home WI-FI network. I
have performed Norton Anti-Virus scans (no viruses),
removed all ad-ware programs, defraged and cleaned up my
disk with no effect.
MS Support said I need to clean off my disk and start again?!
Before I do any other ideas?
If no, how/where do I get Win XP to reinstall if I have an
OEM version of XP and no CD???
