Any XP experts??

[rtrombone]

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 with Windows XP Home Edition. One day when Poker Grapher stopped working I tried to access Windows Update. I couldn't. I got error number 0x8024D00C. After doing some research online I discovered that I may need a certain critical update. The problem is that I can't access Windows Update so I can't download it.

After doing some more poking around it appears that the root of my problems may be that Cryptographic Services aren't running. When I try to start them I get error 999 (error performing inpage operation). When I tried to install my XP Service Pack 2 CD it said that Cryptographic Services need to be running for the installation to proceed. So if I can get Cryptographic Services to run maybe everything will fall into place. As far as I can tell it's not a problem with the Remote Procedure Call service (Cryptographic Services is dependent on this).

Any ideas??

[ QUOTE ]
I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 with Windows XP Home Edition. One day when Poker Grapher stopped working I tried to access Windows Update. I couldn't. I got error number 0x8024D00C. After doing some research online I discovered that I may need a certain critical update. The problem is that I can't access Windows Update so I can't download it.

After doing some more poking around it appears that the root of my problems may be that Cryptographic Services aren't running. When I try to start them I get error 999 (error performing inpage operation). When I tried to install my XP Service Pack 2 CD it said that Cryptographic Services need to be running for the installation to proceed. So if I can get Cryptographic Services to run maybe everything will fall into place. As far as I can tell it's not a problem with the Remote Procedure Call service (Cryptographic Services is dependent on this).

Any ideas??

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a tough one.

Do you have a recent Restore Point to revert to? If not...

Do you have a copy of SP1? This is actually where I would start since it is relatively easy.

If a reload of SP1 did not fix it, I would be looking into determining which, and manually installing, the required Security Patches and hope one of the kick-starts Cyrptographic Services.

[rtrombone]

Thanks for the response.

I don't know if there's a recent Restore Point. I'll check.

Will reinstalling SP1 require me to back up my entire hard drive?

Where on the net can I get specific security patches without going through Microsoft's Windows Update page?

If you know what patch/hotfix you need you can download it manualy at:

http://technet.microsoft.com

[PLOlover]

Just go to services under administrative tools, in control panel, and you can start/stop any services. Also set it to automatic so it always runs.