Thanks for the hand guys. Now I don't have to worry about the SP2 part anymore since it's part of the core source CD. However, I still have a problem with the hotfixes. I did as submix8c said and did a search for the following, one at a time (see below) "IUHIST*CATALOG.XML" "IUHIST" "CATALOG.XML" The only search result I got was a file called "CATALOG.XML" that belongs to office 2007. Also, I tried windows update and that seemed too complicated. (I tried both possible methods, First I tried Help and support center/Windows update then tried Microsoft website/windows security & updates ) and both were not useful in my case, explained below: 1- H&SC / Windows update yielded the following result: You have not yet installed updates from this website or by turning on automatic updating on your computer. What does that really mean? 2- On Microsoft's website I couldn't figure out what's the right updates to download. There are just too many. the_guy has posted a list of the critical hotfixes for Win XP in his post HOTFIXES: Win2000 SP4, WinXP SP2 and Win2003 SP2, Under New Management!. Can I use those hotfixes? Are those (ALL) the hotfixes that I need or do I have to get other hofixes from elsewhere? I hope my questions are clear enough for you guys and thank you in advance.