Browser Hijack and Virus

Yes but I mean that does your account have admin rights

Yes, it always used to until some time during this repair process.

Those instructions are mainly for older IE versions.

If you can't change settings, I recommend that you uninstall/reinstall IE8 to see if it helped

Major trouble?

Shaba:

I confirmed I was still logged in as Adminstrator, but have no access to internet options. When I tried to uninstall IE8, there was no "remove" button in the add/remove program list. Thinking the SP3 download may have been tied to my IE8 problems (as the Microsoft website implies some folks have had), I removed SP3.

Now, I can't boot into Windows XP at all (an error flashes on the screen during the boot up, and it goes back to the screen asking whether to boot into XP or Recovery Console (can't select Recovery Console). I'm stuck in a loop.

Any suggestions? Should I reload Windows XP (and if so will I lose all my documents, etc).

Ugh

Have you tried to boot from windows CD?

I did try to boot from the cd. It gives me the option of launching the recovery console, but when selected it hangs up. When I enter the setup option, it starts to install Windows anew.

When I try to boot normally (not from cd), I get a "fatal system error." It says in part "Session manager initialization system process terminated unexpectedly. The system has been shut down." It then trys to reboot, and continues through this loop.

It doesn't look good to me then.

Easiest option would be backupping files with linux live cd and then reinstalling windows.

If you are not happy with that, I can redirect you to some windows forum.

I'm not familiar with backing up files with Linux live cd.

This might help here. You can use for example external hard drive instead of usb stick.