repairing windows xp?

like two months ago i got a virus and in removing it i guess i did some damage to XP because every time I start windows I get a bunch of error messages that XP doesnt know how to open .exe files so I have to run an exe registry fix every time.

i have been told i need to repair windows xp. i tried to do that last night and i realized i don't know what i'm supposed to do. so heres the thing, i have a laptop that came preinstalled with xp so i don't have a setup cd. i have an i386 folder with all the setup files in it. i can't burn this to a cd and boot it because this laptop is kind of old and the cdrom has died, i have an external one but my pc won't boot from it.

i can make a usb stick, though i'll be honest i don't know really what to do. i was advised to download hirens boot cd, and i set up the usb stick with it using unetbootin. then i stumbled my way into the MiniXP app but at that point i didn't know what i was supposed to do. I thought of trying to run the winnt32.exe setup file from my i386 folder to repair but the only option it gave me was new installation.

so first off, is this what i should be doing to repair the registry? or should i be using the recovery console or something else? second, if i was on the right track, what am i supposed to do once im in minixp?

thanks

 

If you used SuperAntiSpyware during your virus removal and haven't uninstalled it then perhaps you could try uninstalling the program before resorting to an XP repair attempt. If you didn't use SAS or have uninstalled it already then the thread is not relevant.

Take a look at this thread: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=1664669

 

uninstalling SAS did the trick, thanks a lot!