Computer Crashed... OS Reinstall issue...

I have a Dell Dimension 8250 that is about 1 year old. About 4 days ago the system started running VERY sluggishly... everything had been smooth as silk prior to this. I have updated antiviral, spyware, and adware programs and run scans religiously. I thought my son may have run a game, or other app, that had hogged memory... so I rebooted the system. When it rebooted I got an error stating the config.sys file was missing... I tried to use the Windows XP disk to fix the system... but other files turned up missing, too.

I gave up and (stupidly, I know) reinstalled the XP OS on top of what was already there. Thankfully all of my documents and critically precious files were still there (saved under our previous user name... hooray!). However, the majority of the programs that were installed are now unable to run... although they appear to be intact. This includes all the Office products and other pre-packaged products that originally were installed by Dell, as well as many other programs I've installed myself.

Is there a fix for this problem? Or am I looking at a complete wipe of the system with a clean install of the OS? I'm at a loss right now... so I'm turning to the "experts ". Hoping someone can help!

Thanks,
Shannon

 

You should be able to reinstall those programmes again as long as you have the original programme setup packages/exe files. It would probably be best to uninstall the non-working programmes first before reinstalling them, but I suspect in their broken state they may not uninstall so reinstall over the top.

I would also grab your XP CD and from the start menu click on Run and type sfc /scannow (note the space between the c & /) This will replace any missing or damaged system files. You will need the OS CD in your drive and keep clicking the dialog box to replace possibly many files. Set aside maybe 20-30 minutes for this depending on how many files need replacing.
It might be advisable to run a couple of registry cleaners over the system such as EasyCleaner 2.0x and RegSeeker 1.35 Beta. Post back if you need help with these. Also defragment the system on a regular basis as well.