Will it boot up in safe mode? (Hold down control and shift and switch on - keep the keys pressed until windows has loaded). I can never remember if it is control or shift you are supposed to hold or when you press them, but holding both through the whole system boot up works!

Then you could try using system restore or editing your registry to remove offending problems.

What is the exact error message?

If the registry is corrupt (as opposed to having invalid data) then it should revert to an earlier copy. If the data was imported correctly, it should only have affected a single proprietary (Macromedia) key which should not in itself cause a boot problem. This being the case, removing the key may not fix the problem.

A quick google yielded the following...
[commandwindows.com...]
[commandwindows.com...]

You'll need to boot from the CD into the recovery console and open reg.exe (typically C:\Windows\System32\reg.exe).

If you get it working again, I would suggest reinstalling Dreamweaver and simply reentering the registration code (if it is readable on the other computer) rather than importing a whole registry key.

Kaled.

Windows won't boot in safe mode. I have tried to reinstall windows using the suppled OEM CD for xps2 and at some point I get this message "file asms on xp sp2 is needed. Type in the path then click OK'.

The preselected path is GLOBALROOT\DEVICE\CDROM1\I386 yet this is not correct.

Now no matter what I do I get " setup is being restarted" and then I'm prompted for the same asms file, so the whole thing is now in just one big loop. ugghhh

What make of laptop?

Even with an OEM CD, it should be possible to start the recovery console, simple place it in the tray, and press Ctrl-ALt_Del (or power off/on) and wait for the recovery option to be displayed (from memory, this takes several minutes).

Firstly, try deleting the macromedia key (using reg.exe) but if that doesn't work and a repair install doesn't work, you'll have to go with a full clean install. If the CD is faulty (that is possible) you should be able to use another CD with the key supplied with the new laptop (in this case, activation may have to be performed manually, but this is not a problem).

From my own experience, a full clean install is a good idea with any new computer simply to avoid the garbage that comes preinstalled (for example, my Dell laptop under Vista took about 30 seconds to enter standy when I got it, but after a clean install it only takes about 3 seconds).

Kaled.

Thanks Kaled. I'm doing a clean install on my dell with xp pro. So far so good.