I seem to have a problem with my hewlett packard system that runs windows xp home.

For about a week or so when the computer is booting up I get a little window open that says 'Windows Installer - preparing to install' and then it disappears. I'm a bit perplexed as to what it is doing?

The only thing I can think of is an email I got with a word document attachment. When I tried to open it it said I needed Word 2002 disk to install a missing component. I thought this was odd and so just deleted the email (it was from a friend). Since then I've noticed this windows installer box popping up. Also I've found that whenever I now try to use my printer I now get a pop up asking me to install the relevant printer software from its master cdrom.
This has never happened before.

I tried to use Word tonight and it brought up the same message saying I needed Word 2002 disk to install a missing component. I put my Works Suite 2003 cdrom in the drive and it started ok.

Has anyone got any idea what the problem could be?

I run Norton Antivirus and have done a virus check with a negative result. I've also error checked and disk defragged to no avail.

Help!

I've come across this problem before. I'm not sure if it's the windows update that causes it but it's easily fixable.

I will PM you the instructions.

Hmmm never thought of that :confused: I have Windows Update set up so that it just does it's thing in the background and then installs updates when ready.

However whilst faffing around last night I remembered that this started happening around the same sort of time as I installed DVD Shrink and a couple of other associated DVD burning programs as suggested on another thread.

I uninstalled all of these and now I'm not getting the little pop up anymore
:confused: :confused: maybe it was something to do with that?

Touch wood everything seems to be working ok now....

One handy tip is to check your XP's System Restore settings, depending on if you like that kind of thing it may be worth checking these are set right; making it easier to rollback stuff if it seems to cause a prob