Thanks,
Spent a few hours last night & repair installed Xp again. Back to SP1 version. Miraculously printers appeard, Thank you. I tried to manually update XP to SP2 with the original SP2 update disk then update through IE but this caused the machine to freeze.

I have just competed another repair install and have tried to initialise Auto updates through the system properties box Auto update Tab. Whenever the Autuo Update TAb is opened it takes about 5 minutes to accept the changes.

I changed it to download updates a specific time but the time came & went without anything happening.

Not sure what to do next.

I have just manually updated the windows installer via the website and the process appears to have completed properly (before SP2 is installed). I will keep you informed of progress.

So glad the printers are back and you can at least get the updates. Now hopefully SP2 will install for you.

After 2 nights of installing & upgrading, XP is back up & running again. Thank you very much for your help. If you lived closer I would have come round to give you a big hug

OOPs, don't think that's how you insert smilies!!!!

I'm so glad its up and running again for you. At least you have a clean machine from the malware as well. Thanks for the thanks and its a looong way to give me a hug.