????
He is now facing this problem since 11/22 (see his other thread)
What do you mean by serious downtime??

A fresh install of the O/S takes an hour at the most, then if you have the updates ready add another hour and your done...

I agree it looks like a CPA problem but you won't find it with a mixed up registry unless you have weeks of time available.
Let alone the frustration. (;

By the way forgot to mention.. If the problem is there wright after the fresh install ,(so after point 3. mentionned) install again the O/S but then without service pack 2 update and try again.
Don't try to fix it at this point!
That's useless...

Fred



[This message has been edited by freddynl (edited 12-01-2005).]