Have you demanded that your soon-to-be ex-friend repair or replace your PC ;).
0x8ffe2742 means 'The address or port is in use' check out what's the program using the port 80. Use this tool to identify,
You Receive an Error Message When You Try to Start the Web Service
or try 'netstat -ano' (XP Pro) get the PID, check in Task manager then you will know who is using that port. Anything else in event log ?
Nothing according to netstat -ano is using port 80. I had found that article and tired what it said to no avail. In my event log all errors to W3SVC, MSFTPSVC, and SMTPSVC give this great information:
Details
ID: 115
Source: W3SVC
We're sorry
There is no additional information about this issue in the Error and Event Log Messages or Knowledge Base databases at this time. You can use the links in the Support area to determine whether any additional information might be available elsewhere.
I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling IIS but that did nothing =-(.
The ports in use (wish coulda just cut and pasted this):
Perhaps one looks obvious to someone else as a idk proxy or alias for port 80 maybe?
TCP:
135
445
2869
3306
3476
4449
1025
1027
4079
4080
4086
4087
32000
139
4194
4195
4200
4201
4203
4204
4205
4206
UDP:
445
500
1061
1102
1105
1198
1199
1351
1352
1353
4500
123
1900
4044
4074
137
138
1900
Thanks for taking a look and responding =)