So while wifey and I were out last nite, my daughter did something to corrupt a windows file.  I was not able to recover or restore by conventional means, so I was forced to run the emergency restore discs that came with the computer.  So now I have a brand spanking new computer, esentially.

Unfortunately, it also means I have lost everything that I had installed up to this point.  So all the stuff I use for this site and everything else will have to be replaced.  So bear with me if we don't get any new graphics or stuff like that for a bit, or if I'm unable to do certain things I was able to do before.

My system failed to start and went to a startup repair utility.  It diagnosed a file "ci.dll" as corrupt, but was unable to repair it.  It gave me a short list of repair utilities to try, including system restore.  I tried the restore and it failed to complete.  after screwing around with the options, then going into BIOS and trying some crap there, I gave up and got the recovery disks.  But while it was similar to your situation, it didn't claim an authenticity issue, it just said that it was a corrupt file.

I'll be more than a little pissed if it turns out an update wiped out a year's worth of stuff.

lulz ... Windows ... 

I'm sure that was supposed to be a burn, but I don't get the simile