to lilweirddude:

That is pretty weird, my sugestion is reinstall XP and put the latest in drivers of your motherboard, dont use XP drivers for anything you cant find, then install 9.0c and try the game if it doesn't work it has to be some kind of hardware problem.

About Half-Life2... the game is available at Steam's site???

Anyway the hole activation thing is beyond invasion of rights, imagine you buy a pizza with a lock on it, and to get a slice you would have to go to the company for them to open it. People use the argument that pretty much everyone nowadays has internet, but thats not a good argument in my opinion, its just like CD protections which dont allow you to listen to a CD in your computer.

i found a solution

Part 1 :

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Go in the directory :

E:\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\STEAM _ACCOUNT_NAME\half-life 2

there is a directory named "bin" that contains many .dll etc

Part 2 :

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Enter the "bin" directory and copy all the files (ctrl+A, ctrl+C)

go back at E:\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\STEAM _ACCOUNT_NAME\half-life 2

then paste the files here (Ctrl+V)

Part 3 :

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Select all the files and directorys (EXCEPT THE "BIN" DIRECTORY) in

E:\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\STEAM _ACCOUNT_NAME\half-life 2

Copy it !!!

Part 4 :

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No Go back in the "bin" directory then Paste the files and dir you've just copy

if windows tell you that there is files that have the same name so just overwrite it, as you want that's not seams to be a problem if you don't

Part 5 :

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Quit Steam

=> Reload Steam, right click : Games, right click on Half-Life 2 and Launch the game

the only thing that sucks is that you have to redo it everytime the game is updated

it also works for cs:s