Windows XP Utility Problem!!

I can't find ANY information anywhere about this problem...Therefore, I turn to this excellent resource:

I have WinXP Home.

My "Help & Support" and "System Information" do not work.
When I click on "Help & Support", the little hour glass goes for 5 seconds or so, but NOTHING happens,,,No error message, nothing.

When I run "msinfo32.exe" to try to view the "System Information" Hardware Resources, it says: "Cannot display information. The component which displays this information is not functioning properly, or is not present on the machine."

This problem came up recently, but I'm not sure when or how as I haven't tried to use these features in several weeks.

I searched in MS Support, but found nothing similar. Would re-installing/extracting these files from my XP disk be the solution? If so, how do I do that?

Thanks in advance.