WPA issue - won't let me activate

[SoulAssassin]

So my aunt calls me up the other day and apparently somewhere over the past few years her pc was set to not get updates automatically. Friend of hers or whatever ran Windows Update and pulled down a ton of updates. After reboot it was complaining about activation but wouldn't let her activate. It was trying to dial out on her modem which she doesn't use anymore. Does the telephone activation and M$ verifies it's a legit key (it is) and gives the code to activate. Seems like all is good, report activation is complete and then logs her off. Log back on and it complains about activation like it never happened.

Tried using ERD Commander to uninstall all of the hotfixes, no love...renamed the wpa.dbl and copied from install cd...no love. At this point is boots says a problem has prevented windows from accurately checking the status of the license and it must be activated...click yes...logs the user off and back to the welcome screen. Log on...same thing. Obviously there is something corrupt on the windows side. Can't login via safe mode...I can get to recovery console or boot ERD Commander.

Any ideas? I'm really trying not to format and reinstall.

 

[bruceb]

Try a repair install of XP with SP2 already integrated or slipstreamed into it.
Not the first repair option you get, the second one.