installing/uninstalling games

A friends sons Acer Aspire One Netbook AO532h would boot only to a black screen. And from what I could see, it wasnt the full screen, and all I could access is the web browser. The error on the screen was “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: system32hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file.”

I think the problem is that some of the games that my buddy Ethan was having trouble with is that the games that he installed, then deleted, may have deleted some components that the system needed.
From where I stood at the time, the best option for me was to create a bootable Windows7 USB and do a clean install. It turned out to be the right choice.


These are some of the links that I looked at for help:

>> Missing system32 dll file

>> How To Install Windows 7 On Acer Aspire One Netbook

>> BIOS Recovery by Crisis Disk (not an option for me)

>> Acer Support Downloads & Support Documents (didnt see anything to help me with this problem)

>> Acer Aspire One BIOS Recovery (didnt try this)

I have had problems with an Acer product that I bought as a gift for my mom (Acer 24" LCD, Model #X223W Version X223W bd, Serial # ETLAP 08024841057DF4200) but I do think that Acer does have some good products.