Longtime Problem, Need to fix now... PLEASE help!

[XPemCee]

Hey everyone! My first post, and its a doozy. *sigh*

This has been something that's plagued me for around 6 mos. I cannot start task manager. I searched XP's help files to troubleshoot and check things out and the most feasible option as to why it won't pull up is this....

" This program could not start The operating system could not start this program. This may happen if:

Your computer is on a network.

Disregard this option, because I'm not hooked up to a network, its an independent pc.

You need to install the necessary hardware.

Some programs are installed automatically when you install the hardware associated with them.

At one time task manager did work, so its a software issue imo. Strike out this option.

You need to install the necessary software. The program might not be installed on your computer because:

The program file may have been accidentally deleted or corrupted. If you know the name of the file that is missing, you can copy the compressed version from the operating system installation compact disc to your hard drive, and then restore it by doing the following:

This is what I think is wrong. Therein lies the issue, read below for the suggested options for fixing it and see where my real problem unfolds.

cont. Insert the installation compact disc.
Click Browse the CD.
In the folder list, open the I386 or IA64 folder.
Find the name of the missing file.
Note The last letter in the file name extension will be replaced by an underscore because it is a compressed version of the file. For example, notepad.exe is called notepad.ex_ on the installation compact disc.

Copy the compressed file to your systemroot\System32 folder on your hard drive.
Click Start, click Run, and then type:
expand %systemroot%\system32\my_file_name.ex_ %systemroot%\system32\my_file_name.exe
and then press ENTER.
You are running Windows XP 64-Bit Edition. "

I'm 99.9% sure that the above is the problem, because when I ran a search for taskman, it came up and it was missing the final character in the file name, indicating to me at least that THIS IS indeed the problem.

Now, this is an easy fix, yes? Well, its easy if you have the XP disk. However, I purchased this PC from OfficeMax, and XP was already preloaded, so I have no disc for it. Therefore, I can not do this suggested method for the seemingly easy fix. Is there some way I can right this problem aside from that? A place I can download the correct stuff?? Anything? I appreciate the read, sorry for the length, but I thought I'd lay it all out so you can all get a good read on the situation.

Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can lend. Getting this fixed is essential, because I really need to have that back. Thanks again.

- Josh

[Disk_Contented]

Do you mean the file exists on your hard drive with a missing letter?
If so, then if compressed, it should have blue text and it's a simple matter to decompress it.
It may simply be a case of the letter being deleted by accident.
If it's not on your hd, then unless someone can upload it to your mailbox or get you a replacement, you need the cd.
I would have expected a backup to be on the drive somewhere so you could create your own disks.

[XPemCee]

I haven't tried renaming them.... but I'm not sure I want to try. I don't want to have things mess up any worse than they are.
Thanks for the response though.

There's gotta be some way this can be righted, a lot of people buy pcs with preloaded op. systems. *shakes head*

[XPemCee]

If this is any help.....

I have the same 4 files in 2 diff folders missing the same characters, which I'd imagine is at the root of the problem.

taskman.ex_
taskmgr.ex_
taskmgr.hl_
taskmgrp.ch_

There's one set in the C:\I386 folder, and another set in the C:\Windows\I386 folder.....

[Disk_Contented]

As far as i am aware, I386 is the install folder on the cd, or is present in "C:\windows driver cache".
I would expect that the two folders you mentioned are duplicates, C:\i386 is where you would normally do an install from when you have no cd.
Check these folders to see if they are indeed duplicated, if so, delete the unneeded one.
Any files that need to be restored can be done so from here. Likewise, it should be possible to copy the files to a CD.