i was on the microsoft website downloading some security updates because i had a trojan and spyware and i was TRYING to stop it happening again. anyway my hard disk became full during this so all the updates were failing, so i cancelled the application. my computer was running slow after this so i decided to shut it down and re-start it. when it came to booting windows it showed the windows graphic for a bit but then it went to a blue screen saying that a .dll file had been illegally removed from memory and it would not run. i tried safe mode but it wouldn't work either and it just hung on this screen and went no further. so i put in my windows cd and tried to repair windows, but it said it could not repair windows and this was likely due to an internal error. so i booted from the windows cd again and installed a fresh copy of windows, over the EXISTING windows directory. that worked and my computer is working fine at the moment (that i can tell). the only problem is that windows doesn't recognise all the programs i had installed before. the files are all there, example i can go into c:/documentsandsettings and there is a folder there with my name that contains everything i had on the computer before -programs/images/movies - my entire hard drive.
so i was wondering if i have ruined my computer by doing what i did and if i can get this version of windows to recognise all my existing programs somehow? like to somehow get that folder to input into this new copy of windows or something??
if i need to explain anything else please let me know
oh i have a dell pentium 4 2.0 GHz 512 mb ram, windows xp home edition and before this problem i was running service pack 2 v.2096, atm it is just service pack 1 i think
thank YOUIF you have all of the program CD's it would take just a few minutes more to reinstall them. How many hours did it take to reinstall Windows and update that?

An over the TOP install like that has never been satisfactory for me. If you have any data to backup do so, then format the drive and reinstall Windows.

You have just copied over some previous MAJOR problems. You didnt eliminate them.  You also haven't addressed the issue of a full hard drive?  What's going to happen when you try to do the updates again?   :-?

Alan <><  my hard drive is fine now i have plenty of space.
ok so i reinstalled most of my programs from cds and stuff
the only problem now is i cant get avg antivirus to work. i tried reinstalling it but it encountered an error and it wont execute. now i also cant unistall it.
any suggestions?
Do you remember what the error was, usually it will say an error number or a description as to what the error might be.I imagine it was the Roxio CD burning (included with Windows Media Player) warning that is KNOWN to pop up.

If you click OK then it will install and function properly.