Since the Adobe installation CDs are all mass produced it does not seem likely your installation disk is lacking any particular file: something is preventing it from installing properly. It would not hurt to clean the disk prior to the next round of installation.
Uninstall all copies of Photoshop. You do not have to reinstall WinXP (in fact it rarely pays to reinstall XP despite what the computer magazines say).
Manually delete any remaining references to Photoshop on your hard drive, including entries under Program Files and any remaining Photoshop files in the Windows directory and subfolders. Unistall routines often leave distressing amounts of material behind.
Make sure you have a valid system restore point or back up your registry in case something goes wrong with the next step.
FIre up regedit and manually scan for references to Adobe Photoshop and delete these. Sometimes an incorrect registry entry may persist despite going through the canned uninstall routine.
Reboot your computer.
Turn off all background programs. In particular turn off your antivirus program, firewall, spyware scanner etc that examines incoming files. One of these may be preventing the needed dll from installing and registering. Norton antivirus is a notorious problem in this regard for many installation routines such that many programs now explicitly warn you to turn off antivirus programs prior to install.. If you have the WinXP firewall turned on go into Control Panel and turn it off too. If everything installs and works properly don't forget to turn these back on.
If you are paranoid about such things and have a constant on connection,
e.g. DSL, disconnect from the network while antivirus and firewall are
turned off.
Reinstall CS2. If CS2 is an upgrade it only has to see your install disk for CS in the CD rom drive, you do not have to install CS first unless you want to. You may want to install CS2 to a completely new location, it does not have to be in Program FIles, in order to create entirely new references in the registry to file locations than prior installations. If the problem persists and the warning box tells you which file is missing or corrupted you can try to scan your installation disk for that particular file and manually reinstall it to the correct directory. If this does not work you will have to call Adobe. Maybe you do have a defective installation CD.

Kirsten_Harris

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ADOBE HELP ME!! CS2 still not running! Costing me money!!!!