I just upgraded my pc from 98 to XP and after logging on and while the appz were loading the screen turns to black and white with the exception of default icons (i.e. my computer, network places, etc.). During the upgrade I had an error that said "Bad image file msvcirt.dll." Could that be the problem or does anyone know what the problem is?

I believe that has to do something with incompatible versions of msvcrt.dll and msvcirt.dll that you may have had on your system already. You definitely did not have a clean upgrade. Can you get into safemode? If so go in and search your hardrive for that file msvcirt.dll and see how many you have and what the version numbers are. Take the older version numbers and rename them to oldmsvcirt.dll.(lowest version numbers) I am willing to bet you have ton of them. Do the same thing with msvcrt.dll Then go to your start run type in cmd at the prompt type in sfc/scannow. Reboot and see if that clears it up. If not, I would highly recommend you do a clean format and install of xp, it is really the best way to go.

Adding to the above post. You can do a clean XP install by booting with the XP disk. Choose to format your hard drive. It will ask to to insert your 98 disk (to prove that it is an upgrade), then finish installing XP. Good luck.