Did you purchase the machine new.

Yes and it's about 2 years old built by Micro Express. Never had any problems until now. I usually reboot about once a week just to clear everything up and it has always been fine until this morning.

Odd, I was thinking it was an upgrade from windows 98 to xp. I have never seen that before and will run it across someone.

Will the machine boot to safe mode?

Sorry about taking so long to answer. The machine won't boot at all. Tried booting from the installation disk and all it did was re-install windows, but a re-boot attempt brought up the Windows 98 thing again and it locked up at that point. I did the install again and managed to get all my important stuff copied over to my external drive and am now in the process of trying a complete format and re-install XP one more time. If this does away with the "98" problem it shouldn't take more than two or three days to re-install all the programs I had. Oh well, it's not like I haven't been through similar situations before. Sure would like to know what brought this on though as none of the usual anti virus/malware programs came up with anything.
In the meantime, I'm using my wife's computer to research and do my mail.

I would definitely call the microsoft number that is free to call if something happened after an update, they need to know about this problem, you may not be the only one but if no one calls in to let them know well they don't know.

I have been checking the support forums and have not seen any others mention an issue like this, in fact have not really seen any problems with this batch of updates even though it was a significant number.

"Window Secrets" latest edition spoke of windows updates and the problems that are ocurring with them. They called MS on the carpet for such a mess. If (and when)you can get to the latest editon of Windows Secrets,read the article. Then call them. Grady

I get the paid version of Windows Secrets and I would guess you are talking about the article on Windows Genuine Advantage? They should be called on the carpet for making us continue to go through that over and over it is ridiculous, make us do it once and be done with it.

I did not see any mention of this last patch Tuesdays updates causing any problems, they do mention the patches for IE and their importance. I have only seen on a few forums some very minor issues but none like this 98 thing.

I have run this windows 98 issue by a few MS MVP's and no one has seen or hear of it happening and all want to know the outcome so please arkie62 keep us posted on what you do and your outcomes please.

For those who want to view the latest windows secrets here is the link, this however will not contain the paid content, it is an excellent newsletter and well worth subscribing to whether the pay or free version.

Here is a link that might be useful: windows secrets newsletter

Thank you all for your help. I have no idea what happened or how it happened, but after about the 8th time I re-installed XP it started working again. Of course by that time I had completely wiped the hard drive, so now I'm in the process of re-installing all my programs. This has been a real lesson in the importance of backup. Thanks again.

Lot of folks learn backup that way.

I ran that problem across my IT guy an he has never heard of it an said a possible rouge update, his suggestion was a repair install or a reinstall.

wow arkie that is a shame you had to go through all that, glad you finally got it to work though, I know what you mean about learning to backup sometimes that is what it takes for us to start doing it. If you do not have image programs there is a free open source one available.
DriveImage XML

Thank you ravencajun, I downloaded DriveImage and will use it as soon as I get everything back up to par. At least now I don't have as much junk running in the background, but that's a heck of a way to get rid of it. LOL!!!!