I was having difficulties getting updates to install and finally followed one of those knowledge base crumb trails and ended up renaming two files as it suggested. Then I wasn't able to open my desktop programs. I slept on in and in the morning went into my other computer (also XP Pro) and copied those two files and put them in where the renamed files were. It worked fine and would now accept the updates (including the very large service pack 3). Now it does all of the things it was supposed to do but couldn't. I can't tell you what the corrupt files were called, but the knowledge base gave several options. I chose the easiest (I didn't do the "regedit" version).

If you'll post the error message I may have my notes from that last fix and can at least tell you how to proceed on that particular error, if it is the same.

SRS