Windows 2000 Prof SP4

Ok. There are a lot of people with this same problem.
The arcsetup.exe file is used for booting an IDE drive, apparently, specifically in a dual-boot scenario. Does your laptop have 2 drive partitions on it? One partition for Win2KPro and maybe one for Dell to use with a recovery cd loaded on it? I bet there is, with this file being there.
Unfortunately, I don't have a specific fix for this. Did you try booting into Safe Mode, then run SP4? You can run a service pack upgrade from Safe Mode.
The arcsetup.exe file is updated by SP4 (and SP3, from what I read) and in your case, it is used by your laptop. It can't replace the file, and so that is why the error.
I am not really sure what to suggest, if Safe Mode does not work. Maybe you could try booting to the Recovery Console, and install the service pack from there. I have read (but never tried!) that you can install a service pack from the Recovery Console, but it is not a normal install, obviously, since there is no GUI.

Good luck

What update method you are trying while you are updating the service pack?

If you updating using Network Installation, then you try the Express Installation.

Hope you update successfully and tell me the result.

Well, Josephs' Idea is not bad. Did you check your Services yet ? There might be a service running refering to this Exe-File ! You might need to shut down this service and set it to manual; dont deactivate it ! (Might be done also in Recovery Console !) ....

My Advice: before you try any update do SP4 you might want to backup all your local files to a CD-R or Network-Share !

If you somehow are going to overwrite this file, and the SP4-File is NOT compatible .. you are screwd ! Without this file, you are not able to boot your W2K or WXP to access your data ! You will need to reinstall your Windows from your recovery-system. Again, all this if the file is NOT compatible !

Good Luck !!
Markus

Have found with several IBM boxes, had to download SP4 update, disconnect from network, reboot then run the update. Even then had to change the attributes on several files to be completely open for editing for the update to go through. One even took 3 reboots before the SP4 update took.

You could go use msconfig and shutdown all non-essential programs (load only system tray, keyboard and mouse), reboot and try to load SP4. Change it back and reboot.