Iphone

AMD XP 3200+, WinXP Pro, 3x512 pc3200 DDR, 2x120GB internal HDD, 1x250GB external HDD, AIWonder 9800 PRO, Audigy 2 Zs Pro.

Ok, I am not sure how to explain this, so please bear with me.

I used the desktop yesterday and all was working fine. This morning, I woke up to find that it was hanging/stuck on the welcome screen. I did not reboot or turn it off or anything, so it seemed a bit weird. I tried to reboot a few times and it just hung on the welcome screen. So, I rebooted into safe mode. When I did this, the device manager was saying how it found new hardware and needed to load the drivers, asking for the disks. All the of the hardware that was found has been on my computer for at least a year. The list included a USB HUB, A Belkin USB card, all my video drivers, my mouse and keyboard drivers and my wireless network card.

I reinstalled the drivers and rebooted into windows. It wen quickly. Everything as far as the quick launch bar, the program files and my desktop background are missing. Everything is still there, but to get to it, I need to go thru my computer... C.... program files. All my documents, Pictures and music are still there. However.... most of the programs that I try to run give me an error message. All of my MS Office programs tell me to reinstall. Many of the games and programs I paid for are now showing as trial versions or missing .dll files (some of this software/games were trial versions that I later paid for). If I click on MY DOCUMENTS, MY PICTURES or MY MUSIC from the start menu, the folders are empty. In order to access them, I must go thru MY COMPUTER.... FROGSTERSMUM... MY DOCUMENTS/PICTURES/MUSIC. My shortcuts, themes, and etc are now at default.

If I click START.... nothing is on the left side, where my recent programs were. All programs now consist of ONLY what I recently install this morning (mouse, keyboard ) I no longer have a printer installed, nor a network... both of which were there last night. I obviously have internet access, but no network or printer.

The ONLY thing I can think of is that I got a message saying that Windows Media player needed to be upgraded, so I did that. That was from the auto upgrade from Microsoft, so I cannot understand how that would have caused this issue.

One last thing... System Recovery has become disabled, so I cannot go back to an earlier. I do not remember if I had previously disabled it or if it is part of this issue. I have a good virus system... trend micro... and have not had any alerts within the past 24 hours, when the scanner last ran.

Ideas, suggestions, thoughts appreciated and if I left anything out, let me know and I will provide additioanl information,

Iphone

Sounds lilke the registry reverted back to an older (way older install)

Here is a post from venom96737, in Windows XP Operating System: xp repair install issues

He explains the most comprehensive manual registry recovery.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Make a copy of the registry now first
md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

*just incase an access denied pops up while you are trying to do the below steps*
to get rid of the access denied go back into recovery console and rename the system file to system.bak here are the commands. I dont think you will get this error because this is the reason you are here now is these files are bad but just incase u do here is how to fix it.

Type cd \ and press the <Enter> key.
Type cd windows\system32\config and press the <Enter> key.
Type ren system system.bak and press the <Enter> key.
Type exit and press the <Enter> key.
Restart the computer.
*****************************
Then do this to get the snapshot you need from recovery console
type
cd \
enter
cd system~1
enter
cd _resto~1
enter
dir
inside it there are several folders named RP1, RP2. These are restore points. RP1 is the oldest restore point.


so say you want to use rp3

cd rp3
enter
cd snapshot
enter

copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy _registry_machine_software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy _registry_machine_security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy _registry_machine_sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy _registry_user_.default c:\windows\system32\config\default

type exit and you should boot right up to windows.