Arcview 9.3 - error 429 and hang at rdo.dll

I'm trying to load a copy of our Arc desktop 9.3 on a home laptop and
keep hitting these major errors. Not only will it not install, it won't
uninstall without cleaning the registry. So far, none of the
workarounds on the esri discussion groups work. Has anybody else run
into this? I am really not wanting to a do a format and reinstall of
windows just to have a backup of Arcview 9.3.

This is running on XP sp3 and a dell M70 with all current updates. It
was a hard install on our office computer too (Vista) and if not for an
intern current with the software, it never would have loaded on that one.