what on earth has happened?XP update chaos and weird changes

[mrwoggle]

I have a Compaq Presario running XP Pro Sp3

Zone alarm claimed that there had been a registry change, and disappeared.Then Windows restarted, telling me an update was in progress.It got to stage5 and comletely froze.It remained frozen until the following morning, when it claimed it was out of memory and turned off.On reboot it got to Compaq splash screen and got no further.

Now I have got back in but all my settings have been reset, my desktop has changed and I cannot find any of my audio or video files.

On top of this, and the most disturbing bit.In windows explorer, when I explore the C: drive, its full of folders named similar to THIS - d85039725eb48877e.inside these is one file called msxml-kb927089.enu or similar and ll 251 kb

What on earth?I can find my files when I suse earch, but the folders are not there when i search manually..Whats gone on??

Please Please help

MW

 

[oldskool]

The long jumbled numbers and letters folder usually indicates a temp file that was created, and files with ENU associated with them usually indicate English. So I am betting the farm you have some sort of malware aboard, of which you can run Osiris Spyware Guide at Spyware Asylum to check things out.

 

[Osiris]

Gimme the keys to your farm (only if it has a (lake/pond on it)

Microsoft XML Core Services = msxml = KB = kb927089 = Knowledge Base

 

[mrwoggle]

I've run spybot already to no avail.Apparently the msxml4-KB927978-enu and similar are logs for MS update files..as to the moved files I still stumped.

Would anyone know if these folders will be safe to delete?

 

[Osiris]

You can delete them

 

[Hampton]

left over temp files.. are just garbadge that get left behind.. due to the foul install I imagine..

find a program to grab your files and do a fresh install of your OS.. might also be a good time to upgrade to 7 .. hope you have backups of your fav programs.

 

[oldskool]

Gimme the keys to your farm (only if it has a (lake/pond on it)

Microsoft XML Core Services = msxml = KB = kb927089 = Knowledge Base

LOL, no farm, and no lake.... just a house in the city.