Can't Load XP; WININET.DLL error

Hello all - my laptop will not load XP even in safe mode. I get as far as the login screen and then I receive an error stating the following: WGATRAY.EXE - Bad Image: The application or DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\WININET.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.

Anyone have any info on this error and/or how to fix it?

 

Info on this error - your XP install is borked and you can't use it.

How to fix it - have you got an XP installation disk? If you have you could try a repair install (google for how to repair install XP) or if you have a backup, you do make them don't you? Restore your computer using the most recent backup.

Other people may have some more less destructive advice though, but I don't think there is a way around this other than restore from backup or repairing the XP install via the XP CD.

 

Using a Windows XP cd, load the recovery console and type

chkdsk /p
<enter >

There is a fair change the file is OK, but the disk has minor corruption.

You can remove the drive and copy a new winnet.dll from another computer over the one in your c:\windows\system32 directory (must match Windows XP version and service pack)

You can run a repair install

That is the order I would try

 

Get a mac

Seriously though, i've had this error before on my old XP box. A repair install fixed it. Although personally, if I were you i'd use the repair install to get access to your computer again, and then back up all your data and re-install windows. That's what I did.

Windows rarely recovers the same stability after fixing an error like this.