I had something screw up with xp pro. the start button and the whole task bar failed to appear after a restart, never could get it to work thereafter. I put my xp disk in and did a repair, reauthorized through microsoft but it had a warning that I no longer was up to date and needed to reinstall sp2. I have tried and it hangs 1/2 way,I found this error on line and the guy worked around it in safe mode just doing sp3. I tried this but it says I need sp1a or sp2 first I attempted to download sp1a but microsoft has removed it from its website, do any of you experts have an idea what I can do short of buying a new os kurt
You need to slipstream your xp disc to sp2 then reinstall it. http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xpsp3_slipstream.asp You don't need to buy a new OS. The slipstreaming sound complicated but I did it on my xp sp1 with no problems.