Originally posted here by The Texan
Maybe im just a little parnoid... lol I will try and sys restore and see what happens... im disappointed I cant use dalek tool since I have the cd key for my win xp cd but no cd! and im gonna take a look at the link you provided once I back up my registry
Hi Tex

Is your OS an OEM version, do you have restore CD's, the I386 files may be accessible from there, and unless you already arranged to have all of the contents of I386 loaded to the root drive (C) and a few registry tweaks, you will definately need the CD.

Well, in your computer's registry, are several settings that are checked when you run scannow sfc.

As mentioned earlier in this article, the Windows File Protection service constantly monitors for any changes to the main system files. Well Windows XP keeps a cache (copy) of these essential files at the following location:

C:WINDOWS\System32\Dllcache (assuming C: is your system root which it probably is.)

NB - The dllcache folder is extremely important so Windows XP hides it from you! To view it go to: My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View > "uncheck" Hide protected operating system files.

If that's the case on your computer then there is normally no need for the original XP CD to be inserted as your computer has a "copy" it can get hold of in this cache...

But, if the Dllcache folcer,or part of it, has become corrupted for some reason then you will be prompted for the XP CD - so your computer can get a clean copy!

Having said that not ALL installations of Windows XP have ALL the system files cached into this folder! You may only have around 50MB of files in this folder under Windows XP depending on the quota settings in the registry. (Under Windows 2003 Server the default is 300MB of system files!)

Annoying, YES!

Is there a workaround YES!

As well as having a cache of all the system files on your PC, I like to have the I386 folder from the XP CD installed on the computer as well. After doing this I then modify the registry to tell it the source path for these files... Why? Well not only does this prevent 99% of request for the the XP CD with Windows File Protection. But the I386 folder also contains many other files that are sometimes needed by the operating system and this stops those requests for the XP CD too!

NB - With today's large hard drives you are not going to notice this 475 MB folder on your computer, but older systems may not have the space for this...

Step 1

You will need to get your XP CD and locate the folder called:

I386

This is a major folder and should be one of the first you see, now copy this onto your hard drive into the system root. For most of you that is going to be C:\ so you should end up with a folder that looks like: C:\I386
Scannow sfc


Additional Info

I also would recommend a system restore as far back as you can go, and like was also mentioned 2 or 3 AV's running can cause complications, you only really need one with real time scanning on and maybe keep another to do manual scans if you want to vet the one that is running in real time..

Luck...