well the other day my brother installed a game that was not made for XP. something happened when he restarted and the computer would not boot. something was obviously messed up. thinking it might have been the boot.ini, or ntldr i used a tool that i found on a website (i can give link if ya want) and i was able to boot to windows. unfortunaently i had begun a windows repair before that so it booted to the windows install screen. after repairing and getting back up and running, i can go to my family's accounts. however, it requires activation to boot back to desktop. i have internet on both pc's (mine and my familys) but the computer cannot reach microsoft's activation server. i could call them and get the activation code but why can it not reach the activation server?
well i fixed the problem. i had to call microsoft's activation number and get a code. all fixed now but still a weird problem.