My Dell Dimension Desktop is getting old, slow, cluttered and degraded (as am I, having first worked on Univacs as a repair tech, but then spiraling down from superuser back to newbie equivalent over the years--as Alice said, the hurrieder I go the behinder I get). I try to maintain a modicum of cluefulness by compulsively upgrading everything, trying to find readers/players for every file format and codecs for every video, occasionally reading ZDNet articles & white papers, etc. The problem--last year I upgraded Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) from 6 to 7, after which I could not connect via MSIE. I looked at the MS site, and found an appropriate article, but it instructed me to use command.com to check the versions of dozens of dll's and other files, so I deleted MSIE, using add/remove programs, add/remove Windows components, explorer and the delete key, and even regedit. I then installed Mozilla Firefox and lived happily ever after until about a week ago, when I got a stop error, and had to recover XP Pro using my Dell CD and Setup. I haven't lost any documents or applications, so far as I can tell, but the OS has reverted to SP1a, and gives me a warning on the status line that I need to get Service Pack 2. Unfortunately, MS will only deliver SP2 electronically when accessed with MSIE, but when I tried to reinstall MSIE6, I got an error message stating that the operation was aborting because a later version of MSIE was discovered. So how do I scrub MSIE out completely so I can reinstall it (or get SP2 without sending away for the CD version)? 
TIAPS: I will be happy to upload a HijackThis log or any other diagnostic tool you might need--I have a lightning-fast Verizon FIOS connection on a wireless home LAN (which cuts down on malware).
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