Not in this case, I don't think. I searched the system32 folder when this happened to me with Linux, and the DLL was really gone (or just not there). I ran the XP recovery w/repair disk and it got fixed. Note to all: make a repair disk.

It seemed to me that this was somehow related to replacing the boot sector code for XP - perhaps on boot, this DLL is created/moved on the fly.

Dual boot of XP and anything else is a major pain. What I did was reinstall XP on FAT32 from a CD, call Microsoft, and activate over the phone.

It wasn't as if I didn't warn Norm about this.