Recently, I messed up my MBR on a dual-boot computer with Windows XP SP1 on the primary drive and Kubuntu Dapper Drake (v. 6.06) on the second drive. After some trouble, I eventually searched around and decided to use the GAG Boot Manager to get access to Windows XP. After I was able to access the drive, I decided to continue to reinstall my system. Everything went smoothly until Windows XP started to copy the necessary files to the hard drive. At that point, I got this error message:
Copy Error
Setup cannot copy the file licwmi.dl_
I clicked on Browse and the file appeared to be on the CD, but the installer does not recognize it. Would it be possible for me to get a copy of that file, put it on CD or a USB drive, and let the installer use that file instead?

Im guessing you could copy the contents of the cd and add that file and reburn it. Also is the _ in the filename on the cd?

I would also consider the Grub bootloader which can be fixed via live cds
check out my [plug]blog post on it[/plug]

there is also a way to get a bootable version of windows that you could probably copy the files from there on to your windows partition.
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry725.html

On the CD, _ is in the file type when I check properties, so I think the full filename is LICWMI.dl_

Are you wiping the drive (or partition) and doing a fresh install or are you trying to write over the old Windows installation?

Here's what happened. I tried to fix the MBR to get Windows XP back by putting in my Windows XP SP1 CD and going into the Recovery Console. It fixed the base files, but I needed to log in order to run the fixmbr command. However, I did not remember the administrator's password and my user name and password (despite having full administrator access) could not be used to log in. So, I tried using the suggestion in this link to regain access, but when I restarted the computer and took out the CD, GRUB blocked it from finishing the install. That led to me using GAG to get access to my hard drive and finish the installation. So I guess that the drive was trying a fresh install, but I'm not sure.

OK, I got to this forum through Google searching for my own problem, which in essence matches the original problem in this thread. I have since solved the problem, and wish to post the solution here for future Google searchers.

First, my problem: I wanted to do a repair install of Windows XP. So I did, and during set up, while it was copying over files, it said it couldn't copy licwmi.dl_. It was on the CD all fine and dandy, but it still wouldn't copy it over. Hitting cancel to skip that file, I went through 25 of them before giving up. I wrote them down, I might post the list here if I find that paper.

So, here's the solution: I did this based off of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/818464. I rebooted off the Windows install CD, and hit R to go to the repair console. I then proceeded to delete c:\windows\security\edb.log. Then I rebooted the computer without going into the CD, and let the Windows installer continue (where in previous reboots it complained of not being able to copy files again). Once the installer loaded up, and before it could complain of not copying (which it would take about 5 minutes to get to), I hit Shift + F10. In the command prompt, I typed "esentutl /p c:\windows\security\database\secedit.sdb". And then I deleted c:\windows\security\edb0000x.log. And this time, there was no complaint of inability to copy files. Yay!

Those files with an underscore in the extension are unfinished files, which must be altered by the installer to be configured to your computer. They can't be just copied.