Someone, ANYone, please help me. I'll be da%ned if I'm going to actually pay Microsoft for tech support when their OS is the piece of crap it is. Full Story: for the past week, my computer had problems booting into windows xp. I'd boot into safe mode, sometimes that would work, sometimes not. Eventually I'd boot it up/play around with booting until it loaded into its normal settings. I even performed a restore to a previous day a few days ago to see if that would help. It helped, but not anymore. Today my computer would not even boot into windows xp. It just kept going into a never-ending boot/restart cycle, coming to the winXP load screen then blacking out and rebooting itself. Ok, I only built the thing THIS PAST JULY, so I can reformat it, losing all my data off the c: drive, suuuure. I set the BIOS to boot from the D:\ (CD) drive, which it does, so I go about formatting the C: drive, which takes forever and a day. When it enters the system file installation process, I start getting errors like "setup cannot copy this file" for dll and sys files. I first try to retry the copying of the files, but that doesn't work, so I hit ESC and this continues for approx 20 sys/dll files. Eventually windows setup starts, but I receive this error: An error has been encountered that prevents setup from continuing. One of the components that windows needs to continue setup could not be installed. A component's file does not match the verification information present in the component manifest. Press OK to view the setup log file. The log file says this: Error: SYS.DLL Syntax error in manifest or policy file "E:\I386\asms\1000\MSFT\WINDOWS\GDIPLUS\GDIPLUS.MAN" on line 4. Error: Installation Failed: E:\I386\asms Error Message: A component's file does not match the verification information present in the component manifest. Now, from poking around online, I discovered that these errors were either for a bad CD, or because my hardware config was different that my original (windows installing) configuration. I'm using an official copy of WinXP, and it WORKED the first time around, so I ruled out the disk. I promptly disconnect my 2ndary hard disk and reboot. I format the C: drive again (takes forever) and then yay! windows setup loads! but then I get this error: COM+ setup caught an unhandled exception during installation. Com+ will not work... Unhandled exception C0000005 occurred at address (SHELL32! Win32 DeleteFile +942) More info, including a stack trace, can be found in the c:\windows\comsetup.log file. Call 1-800-936-3500 to speak with a Microsoft Technician. Yeah, soooo...is my computer...just a paperweight? Should I proceed to throw it out the window and go back to using my 4-year old iBook which has NEVER had any problems? Please someone...help me...pleeeeease. My specs: (I built the comp using newegg.com) VGA sapphire 1x1600 XT 256M ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe nVIDIA nFO AMD CPU A64 32004 2.0G 939 512R 512Mx2 (Memory) 320GB SATA2 hard drive (C:) SONY DVD-RW (D:) Western Digital 500GB 2ndary drive (E:\) Floppy drive A:\ I can provide more specifics, but I really don't know THAT much about all this. I'm learning as I go!

Bad RAM, I had a very similar prob. with my niece's PC. Had probs installing: (missing, bad or corrupt .sys or .dll files) Even when I did get it to install, the PC had 'stability' issues. So I put a stick of my PC's RAM in it. Have'nt had a problem with it since. Rich Gu

Could RAM go bad in 2 months? I only just installed it! It's worth a shot though. Any suggestions on brands that are trustworthy?

Troubleshoot the problem, don't just start buying new parts for no reason! I highly doubt this was caused by Microsoft...after all, then didn't assemble the PC, did they? It may be a hardware issue, or virus/spyware related, or driver related, etc...you won't know until you check things out. If you suspect the RAM, download memtest86, create a boot floppy, boot off it, & let the diagnostics run. You have 2 sticks of RAM so possibly it's only one of them...or this may not be a RAM prob at all. Not surprisingly, you left the PSU info out of your specs. What brand is it? How many watts? How many amps on the +3.3v, +5v, & +12v rails? If you don't know, check the label on the side of the PSU.

test your memory modules: http://www.memtest86.com/ create a copy of your installation CD to make sure it's 100% ok next time you format your drive chose 'quick' so it will not take 'forever and a day' make sure that all ide connectors and cards are seated properly in their slots and sockets. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

I have a feeling it's the RAM, because now when I try to run windows xp setup, I get the "Insufficient resources to run API" and then the comp reboots itself. Dumb question...Went to www.memtest86.com and downloaded the ISO file. I tried burning the ISO to CD with Roxio, but this did nothing when I tried to boot off it. Did I burn the ISO correctly? Do you need a special program? There's no link on the site to be able to make a floppy...