Unlike my friends before me, I actually do know what you're talking about.
Since I've read somewhere that noone here cares if one has illegal software, I shall speak freely.
In most (99.9%) illegal copies of WinXP (home, pro, corporate) there is a bug in Windows Explorer (explorer.exe process) which crashes it too often for comfort.
This happens to some legal copies as well (some 20%) so I might be wrong about you having some no-no discs
Anywayz, there is a strange "fiX" that works in some cases. Here's what you should do:
As soon as Win starts up and you're nice and logged on, run task manager (alt+ctrl+del), goto processes, right-click explorer.exe and change process priority to high or to realtime if you have a fast PC (p4 1600 and + MHz). Do the same with iexplore.exe if and when it's active. This will make it so that explorer doesn't crash; it will (kind of) freeze instead.
When this happens, you need to run task manager again, and change explorer.exe priority back and forth, randomly, for a few times (10 times will suffice) after which you return it to high/realtine, and close task manager. Approx. 5-10 seconds later you can resume your work as usual.
If this doesn't help, pray that this bug is fixed in SP2 and d/l it.
Good luck!
Careful what you wish... You just might get it
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Edited by - Chetnik on 8/14/2004 5:39:59 PM