I have 3 computers on a network. laptop preinstalled with XP
1 desktop with XP home and 1 desktop with me. Had problems with a printer on the ME system stopping when a print from a xp laptop. Decided to load XP copy that i already had on the other PC. loaded fine, topped up with SP2 no probs for a couple of weeks. Daughter installed game and screwed up windows. reinstalled xp. During the install i forgot to uncheck the update setup files from the net. The install stalled after a few moments. Restarted machine and since then i have the same problem that you mention. Call me a cynic but i suspect that Microsoft has established that this version of windows is registered to another machine and delivered data onto my hard drive/bios to stop Xp reloading. Is this possible anybody.