Hi. I hope someone can help me. When I loaded my laptop this evening, I got one of those Windows Updates alerts, to install Service Pack 2. I went ahead and did this, but it froze halfway through, so I cancelled the installation and used ctrl-alt-del when it wouldn't close on its own. I then decided to wait to install it again, so I could get some work done. I tried opening Wordpad, but I got an error about shreggetvalue and shlwapi.dll (this is from memory, so those might be wrong slightly) and wordpad wouldn't open. So I downloaded the setup file for the Service Pack 2 from the microsoft site, and reinstalled it from scratch. This time it didn't freeze, but WordPad still didn't open. So I rebooted as instructed, but XP wouldn't boot up. It said something about installing a previous configuration, and then rebooted itself, but the computer wouldn't load. After the XP loading screen, a quick blue screen flashed (not long enough to read it) and then rebooted again. And it kept doing this and would never actually load. I tried entering Safe Mode and the "Last Good Configuration" and it did the same thing. Does anyone know of anything to try? I've only had this laptop and XP for few months so I don't know too much about it. I'd prefer not to have to reformat, but I guess I can if there's no other solution. Has anyone else had problems with Service Pack 2? I've never had any problems with any Microsoft updates, so I didn't really think about backing up many of my files. :( Please help! I don't know what to do. Thanks. Laura http://laura.alturl.com

Pop the XP CD in and do a repair installation. Pick the SECOND "R", not the first screen repair - that will just load you in the Recovery Console. You will lose all updates, but your data and settings will remain intact. -Andrew

Thank you! Worked like a charm :) Laura http://laura.alturl.com

Ohh no problem! :) Glad I could be of assistance! :) -Andrew