trying to rescue xp with out cd's..please help

I fear I may have ruined my friends XP home edition...and when I did a system restore it became worse..and getting worse every time I try to recover it.....its now 11 years old -meaning updates and spk3 are gone! - its stuck on ie6 and wont let me update anything, missing files....kernal 32 and some kind of other files...I dont have the computer in front of me....it wont even go on line now..I dont have recovery discs and would greatly appreciate someones assistance please..oh yes..also..when I had task manager open..it was in processes I think and I ended 3 different iexpolorer dot somethings....thank you.

 

You can manually download updates from Microsoft updates center and then transfer them via usb to the afflicted pc

depending on what service pack was on the original installation, you will need sp 2 and sp3 and ie8 installed before microsoft updates will work.

or you may have to do a fresh install of windows

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please explain the steps you took that resulted in this issue.

 

first i did a disc clean up on c drive
then defragmented same...it was super super slow just to log on to windows..I brought up task manager..and saw 3 iexplorer somethings running at 15 thousand plus and cpu was 100%..I ended all 3 processes....I do not have an intelligent answer as to why I did that-dont even know what I was thinking..Ive spent a few hours each day for a week now reading what I can but Im lost-truthfully-niether one of us can afford the discs for 7..she really likes xp....thank you for taking the time to read my mistake and for taking your time to respond.

 

iexplorer.exe is internet

explorer.exe is your windows os.

If all you did was a disc cleanup and a defrag, You are probably infested with malware and/or a virus.

there are two options a clean install of the os, which if you did not receive a installation cd with the pc, then there should be a restore partition on the drive that you would enter according to your manual.

or you can download and burn to a cd a rescue cd from kaspersky:

http://support.kaspersky.com/us/4162

you would download the ISO and save it to your desktop and then use Imgburn to burn to a cd

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download&

you can do this from a working clean pc.

then carry cd to the afflicted pc and run by booting into the bios and setting the boot sequence to boot from the cd drive first

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what is the make, model and model number of the pc??

desktop or laptop??

for example: I have a desktop Dell Dimension 3000

 

To all in this thread:

HOW TO DOWNLOAD SP3 FOR XP
http://www.computing.net/howtos/sho...ervice-pack-3-sp3-after-april-8-2014/916.html

sp3 is no longer carried at the microsoft download center