Helper Service starts with every boot, then can't restore COM+ Registration database, file not found

[bigopf]

Hello out there. Can someone please help this newbie user? First the short nitty-gritty, then some additional background in case it is needed.

 

I just installed OEM Express version 7.5.285 (the download resulting from the settlement of the class action against Western Digital). On my first backup (to an external USB hard drive), although I got a message at the bottom saying "completed successfully," the program was hung. I think this happened when it was going to the "prepare for disaster recovery" step. I had to restart the computer and I got a message saying Retrospect had not exited properly last time, then the Retrospect Helper Service started. It completed the first two steps, then while it appeared to be trying to perform the "Updating Meta Data" step, I got an error message saying "Can't restore COM+ Class Registration Database (The system cannot find the file specified.)" Thinking it might cure the problem, I did another backup, without the disaster recovery step, and this completed normally. But every time I boot my computer up, I now get the Helper Service and error as explained above.

 

Question 1: is there a problem, and if so, how to fix?

Question 2: if no problem, can I stop this Helper Service from running every time?

 

Additional background, which probably has nothing to do with the issue, but just in case: Over a year ago, I had backed up the computer with a prior version of Retrospect, and saved a copy of the C drive to an external hard drive. Then, following some advice from HP e-mail support (that ended up hurting more than helping the issue I was having), I re-installed the Windows XP OS. Before reinstalling XP, I unsuccessfully tried to boot the computer from the backup copy of the C drive from the external drive, which didn't work. So I re-installed XP and all of its updates, step by step. At the present time, the OS is up to date with SP2 and all MS updates, and I am having no problems (except for this Retrospect Helper issue). The new version of Retrospect does see the existence of the previous back-up folders on the external drive. The computer is an HP Pavilion with the Windows installation folders in a partition on the C drive, which by the way turns out to mean that Retrospect can't prepare a disaster recovery CD because it is too big.