Kelsenellenelvian, I followed your instructions. nLite worked. The new XP Home install CD worked. My new clean install works. Thank you very much. You mentioned "service pack less i386" and it occurred to me that the installation I was using was updated, and hence shouldn't need to be slipstreamed (smacks forehead). Indeed, the new install already has SP2. Thanks to everyone involved with nLite. EDIT: Well I spoke too soon when I implied that everything had worked perfectly. When I tried to Activate my new install it said that I had entered an Incorrect Product Key in spite of the fact that I had entered exactly what was on my computer's Proof of License Certificate of Authenticity sticker. I decided to try a program that is supposed to be able to detect product keys for software that have already been entered. I ran the program in my old installation of XP Home and it found a key completely different from the one on the COA sticker. I tried entering the newly found key in to the Activation process and it said that I'd entered an Unauthorized Product Key. Now, I found that entering any random alpha numeric string of text will output an Incorrect Product Key error but only the key found by the third party key detector would cause the Unauthorized Product Key error. I am kind of curious as to the difference between Incorrect Product Key and Unauthorized Product Key. Anyway, I decided to try Activating by phone. I entered the key from the COA and called the phone number the Activation process told me to. I was put through to GAL 9000 (Microsoft's female version of HAL 9000, jk) which to my surprise ended up handling the entire Activation by Phone process (I had been expecting to be put through to a human). GAL 9000 asked me for the 54 digit code the Activation process on my computer had generated, which I read 6 digits at a time. To compensate for my habit of mumbling I made it a point to speak loud and clearly and GAL seemed to correctly understand what I had said. GAL then began a light interrogation with questions like "Is this you first time activating this copy of windows?" and "Have you replaced your computers motherboard?" which I answered honestly. After the interrogation GAL read me a 54 digit code (6 digits at a time) to enter in to the Activation process on my computer. I entered the code and was able to successfully activate windows.
