Strange problems with windows, thinking of reinstalling

From: Billy (artist12084_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 05/12/04 

Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 16:30:49 -0400

Ok, I'm good enough with computers to get myself into trouble, but not
always good enough to get myself out of trouble.

I was messing around with msconfig (I'm convinced that it's bad luck for me
to do so). I restarted in safemode, or "Diagnostic Setup" as they like to
call it now, and then I restarted in normal startup and weird things have
happened. My Windows XP themes have disappeared, I'm left with only the
classic windows themes, my scheduled tasks won't work (I get an error with a
number and the Microsoft help didn't fix it, my printer has disappeared, XP
won't install any, and when I downloaded the drivers from HP it said it was
already installed, so I couldn't fix it by doing that.

All my programs seem to be working fine, though, and the only other strange
thing that seems to have happened is that a "Set Program Access and
Defaults" has mystically appeared on my start menu and my "all programs"
menu. I've tried everything I could possibly think of in msconfig to fix
this, enabling everything, enabling nothing, only disabling possibly
malicious programs/processes, then any programs I didn't recognize and so on
and so on.

For what it's worth, I've kept Norton Antivirus up to date and full system
scans haven't found anything. Even though I haven't done spyware checks on
this computer, my family's computer at home is doing same crazy stuff (it
has been for several months now, and also started after I rebooted from safe
mode) and using spyware deleting programs hasn't helped it out any. The
last thing left I can think to do is re-install my Win XP pro.

All that being said, here are my questions if anybody can help me to answer
them:

Reinstalling XP, I've heard, is a major pain in the rear, has anybody else
had these problems and found a way to fix it?

I've reinstalled 98 on our old computer several times, and it wasn't very
difficult, but I'm told with Win XP you have to call somebody or do
something with your serial number or you won't be able to reinstall it,
anyway, what's different about reinstalling Win XP compared to 98?

I guess somebody is going to ask, so I'm going to go ahead and say:

Yes, I do have a legal copy of Windows XP Pro, and I'll have all the boot CD
's and registration numbers and stuff as soon as a package arrives from home
with all that stuff.

Yeah, I write too much, but I really appreciate anyone who is patient enough
to read through all this stuff and reply.

-Billy

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