That pesky Windows Genuine Advantage...
... screwed up my PC a right treat, that did. Last week, it went all hissy and told me my copy of XP was pirated. All of a sudden, like! The original MS hologram CD is on the desk beside me, the C of A is stuck to the back of the PC. I paid real money for the genuine article when I built this PC. MS software doth verily tell fibs!
It turned out that the problem was that I'd not given WGA permission to access the Internet via my firewall, and this was its way of protesting.
Apparently, it goes like that.
I understand the Linux drivers for my graphics card will be released in the next few weeks, so maybe the time has come to switch the main PC over and consign Windows to the attic.
The backup machine has been running on Linux for a couple of years. It's a lot more stable, and a heck of a lot faster than Windows.